Conversation Hearts
by amandajbruce
Summary: Snippets of conversations amongst the members of the SHIELD team. An alphabet challenge.
1. Chapter 1

Conversation Hearts.

-o-

Amen.

-o-

Jemma Simmons has, for a very long time, thought of herself as a scientist before anything else. She hasn't seen the inside of a church since she was a very young girl. Not since she attended the funeral for a great aunt.

It wasn't that she didn't understand the need to look to a higher power for guidance. Human beings searched for meaning and guidance; it was in their nature. It was more along the lines of her being so used to relying on evidence and facts that she wasn't sure about where her own beliefs stood. Especially not since the same beings that some cultures worshipped as ancient gods had recently been revealed to be, well, aliens from another world where science and magic had somehow become a single entity. She also hadn't really had much reason to ask for help over the last few years. She had been basically confined to the safe space of her lab.

But now, Jemma Simmons was on a team with a group of people who seemed to be constantly walking into danger. And she couldn't rely on her own skills to stitch someone up when their wounds went below the surface. Sitting in a hospital waiting room where the doctors wouldn't allow her any information about the condition of one of her teammates was not something she was very good at. She started off her wait pressed up against Fitz's side, hoping that they would somehow give one another an infusion of strength. But with every neuron in her brain crying out for more information and more help, she was too antsy to sit still.

"I'm just," she started, bracing her hands on her knees and jumping to her feet, "going to the little girls' room."

Simmons took in the guilty look on Fitz's face that hadn't left since they first found Skye, Ward's hard lines of anger that she was afraid were never going to go away, Coulson's worried brow line, and May's carefully controlled expression, as closed off as ever. None of them protested. None of them said she shouldn't go alone. None of them said anything. So she swallowed, nodded her head, and left the room. A couple of turns down a confusing hallway later, and she'd reached the restroom.

It smelled like much of the rest of the hospital in here. Disinfectant, lemon, plastic, heat. It's not altogether unpleasant. It reminded her very much of the labs at The Academy. And the memories of learning and climbing the SHIELD ranks are something of a comfort right now when she isn't allowed to do anything. Walking over to the sink, Jemma chanced a glance in the mirror. She didn't look half bad for a girl whose friend and teammate was fighting for her life nearby. In fact, short of her bloodshot eyes and trembling hands, you might not even know that she was upset.

Washing her hands for probably the tenth time since attempting to stop a hole in Skye's abdomen from leaving her blood all over a wine cellar floor, she took one long deep breath in, held it, and pushed a shaky one out. Using the mirror as a way to gauge if there was anyone in the other stalls, Jemma shot her eyes from one door to the next. All three were devoid of life. She was safe. And unobserved. So she gripped the edges of the sink, opened her mouth, and she started to speak, all the while staring at the steady stream of water pouring from the faucet.

_So here it is – I don't claim to be an expert on this whole thing. And I might not be well versed in the praying part of religious tradition, but I'm willing to try if you are… whoever you may be._

_I – I don't really know Skye all that well to be perfectly honest. I think there's a lot about her life that she's kept to herself. Maybe she doesn't want us all to know how bad things were for her. Skye doesn't strike me as the kind of person who is going to thrive on pity. I know that she doesn't have anyone else. The people in the waiting room out there, my team, they're Skye's team to. I guess you know that. What I mean to say is that… There's this idea that you're born in to one family, that you don't get a choice about who you share your bloodline with, but that the people you become friends with, share your life with, those are the family you choose. Skye didn't really get a chance to choose us. She fell in with us because, well, I don't really know the whole story, but I know we probably aren't her first choice for a family. Not really. But I'd pick her for mine in the breadth of a single heartbeat._

_I need you to help those doctors in there do what they do best. Skye is like a ball of energy that keeps the rest of us on our toes. She's the missing piece in our very dysfunctional little puzzle. And we really are a family. She's become a real friend to all of us, maybe even a sister. We'd do anything for her. And I'm sure any of us, all of us, would trade places with her. Not that I'm bargaining for that, of course. I do know my stages of grief. It's something they teach us at the Academy. A basic psych course to deal with eventualities in the field. I'm not ready to lose anyone though. Oh, I know, no one is ready to lose someone. I just mean – _

_I'm not being very clear, am I? The whole point of this prayer is to ask you, again, no disrespect to whichever deity is choosing to listen to me, to please help us – them – save her. If we lose her, I don't know that our family can recover. We're only just getting to know her. We need more time. Maybe you could just buy us a little more time?_

A twinge of a spring needing to be oiled made Jemma stop in mid thought. She wasn't ready to finish. But she didn't really know what else to say. The opening door revealed a sullen Agent May who, without a word or nod of acknowledgement, headed straight for a stall and locked the door behind her. Jemma didn't hear the telltale _zzztt _of a zipper, or any other sounds that would have indicated that May was even there to use the restroom. Jemma took in another deep breath, rinsed her hands again, let the breath out, and turned off the water.

Just as the stream of water came to an end, she heard a sharp thud, followed by a deep cracking sound, and May unlocked the stall and joined her at the sink. Her eyes were hard as she turned on the faucet and washed plaster from her hands, and Jemma could see the indentation in the wall behind them. May wasn't going to cry, or curse the world, or even pray. One quick burst of energy, and she was ready to go back to being the rock for the rest of them. Jemma collected herself as best she could, and turned to the other woman.

"Do you think-" she broke off, unable to continue with her question.

"They'll help her," May responded easily. "They're doctors. It's what they do. And Skye isn't dying. She crawled across that floor because she wanted to live. And I don't know if you've noticed, but Skye doesn't give up when she wants something. She fights for it." She paused to take a breath before adding, "you should get cleaned up, get fresh clothes while we're waiting. We don't know how long they'll be working on her."

May left the younger agent standing there at the sink, the door closing behind her softly. Jemma dried her hands with a paper towel and caught her reflection in the mirror.

_Help her fight. Please._

_Amen._

-o-

* * *

**A/N: Every Valentine's day, the American market is flooded with tiny little candy hearts with cheesy messages on them. They say things like Kiss Me, or XOXO, or Be Mine. You know, short little messages that are Valentine inspired. More recent hearts have used text speak and internet shorthand, but they never seem to have more than a few letters, and usually only one line of text. So, I'm using those as my inspiration for a challenge of sorts. The focus will change in each chapter, highlighting a conversation between two characters on the show. Nothing's going to be in order. It will be totally random. Except that there will be 24 chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet. Kind of like my older challenge Lilly, Alphabetically. But I'm aiming for my challenge words to be ones that would fit on a conversation heart, so I think no more than 10 letters. And the words are going to be chosen randomly. Feel free to suggest words if you'd like. I can't promise that I'll use them, but I'll try.**


	2. Chapter 2

Conversation Hearts

-o-

Bonfire.

-o-

Your mouth is a revolver  
Firing bullets in the sky  
Your love is like a soldier  
Loyal 'til you die

-James Blunt, Bonfire Heart

-o-

When he finds out they're going to be on the same team, he's surprised. He's heard of her. Everyone has heard of her. But she hasn't been in the field in years. And now, she's flying the plane. It's unthinkable that someone as talented, as committed, as good, as The Cavalry is just the bus driver. And after they've completed the repairs following their second mission and he's had a couple drinks with the scientists on the loading dock to celebrate, he wanders into the cockpit and tells her so.

"I like driving the bus."

It's all she says to him, but after, she slips on her sunglasses, hiding the steeliness in her eyes. She lets out one long, slow breath as she runs through a mental checklist of sorts.

"I couldn't have got the others out of this thing without you, you know?"

It slips from his mouth without thought. He's not usually one to give compliments, and he definitely isn't one to admit he needs (or needed) help. And he hasn't said anything to her about their group bonding experience that involved blowing a hole in the side of the plane since it happened. They've been surrounded by other SHIELD agents and engineers for the better part of a week.

"I know." One corner of her mouth quirks up in a smirk, but she doesn't say anything else to him. She flips a switch, pushes a button, and speaks into her mic so the rest of the team can hear her, effectively ending their conversation, "Wheels up."

He doesn't say anything else, but he stays in the copilot seat for the rest of their flight. Three hours in silence with her, and it isn't awkward. She doesn't fill the silence with chatter like Skye or Simmons would. And she doesn't look at him like he's something to be studied or worked out like Fitz does. It's nice. Almost familiar.

And it becomes a thing.

If he's not training Skye or briefing Coulson, if they're en route to a mission, he spends part of the trip in the cockpit, going over parameters of the next op with her. As a specialist, he's had flight training, though he isn't as adept as she is, and sometimes, she even leans back in her seat, relaxed, and lets him take the controls. Those quiet few hours with her now and again, they help him focus. They keep him on his toes. Even if all he does is recite the mission back to her and she gives nothing but an "Mmm" in response to his questions, it keeps his head clear, his mind sharp.

And sometimes, he brings her a cup of tea or coffee, and they sit and say nothing at all.

He finds that she's the only one who understands what it's really like to be on this plane, on this team, with a bunch of people who have next to no training, a bunch of people who have serious issues with following orders in the field. She's the only one who understands what it's like to be a specialist, trained to work alone and get the job done, and suddenly be responsible for a trio of not-field-certified-agents like they're your own siblings. She's the only one who knows exactly what it's like for him.

-o-

And I've been looking at the stars  
For a long, long time  
I've been putting out fires  
All my life

Everybody wants a flame,  
They don't want to get burnt  
And today is our turn

-o-

He's not sure when it happens. Or why it happens. All he knows is that one day, sitting with her in the cockpit of the plane, staring out at the inky black sky around them, he's struck by her reflection in the glass. Somewhere along the way their easy familiarity and camaraderie has shifted into attraction. He knows this because instead of paying attention to cloud formations or landmarks in their silence, he finds himself surreptitiously tracing lines on her face with his gaze.

It's easy to put that away, shove it off to the side, and focus on their work. It's what they're trained to do in SHIELD. You put your feelings aside, and you do the job.

It occurs to him that these feelings could simply be the product of him being cooped up in this small space with so many attractive people, and all of his energy being put into missions that just lead to more missions. There's no real resolution, no real release, and he isn't used to having that kind of feeling while stuck around so many other people who happen to appeal to his baser instincts. One night, after a mission, he commiserates with her about the lack of resolution to their jobs, how they never know exactly where the artifacts end up, who interrogates the prisoners, just what happens. He's never complained about his clearance level before, and a part of him, ever the soldier, feels guilty for it now. Maybe she feels a bit of the same frustration, a bit of the same need for release, because she sets the plane to autopilot and offers to go a few rounds on the mats with him to work off some of that extra energy.

He's grateful. And when he managers to pin her, just once, he sees a smirk that lets him know maybe the attraction isn't all that one sided after all.

-o-

Days like these lead to...  
Nights like this lead to  
Love like ours.  
You light the spark in my bonfire heart.  
People like us—we don't  
Need that much, just some-  
One that starts,  
Starts the spark in our bonfire hearts

-o-

So when the **Beserker Staff** (that's how he thinks of it now, bold and larger than life, it's made such a huge impact on him) affects him so strongly and she invites him into her room with a bottle of whiskey, he can't help but walk through that door. He knows there isn't just going to be whiskey, that they aren't just going to talk about their feelings. He locks the door behind him.

He doesn't fool himself for a minute into thinking whatever happens between them over the next couple of months is by any means love. It's different than that. It's fast and hard and necessary. It's scratching an itch that won't go away. It's allowing his mind to blank for that blissful short amount of time. It's letting her chase away all the bad things in his head. It's probably all the same for her. And he expects that people like himself and May don't know how to let themselves fall in love anymore. It's not part of the job, so they don't do it. They don't give enough of themselves in a relationship for it to work anyway.

That doesn't mean there aren't moments on missions where his mind starts to wonder about her. He knows that she's as strong as he is, faster than him, better than him in a lot of ways. He doesn't have to worry about her. So the first time it causes him to lose focus, he's surprised. And he makes sure it never happens again. He does what a specialist does best – compartmentalizes.

The May he knows in dark rooms, behind shower curtains, and under layers of sheets, that is a different May than the one who can break a guy's wrist in two seconds. The May who makes him squirm and beg under her touch is not the same May who makes a high value target squirm and beg under her touch. He forces himself to make that distinction over and over again.

And it works.

Because he's not the kind of guy who's going to fall in love with a teammate. He's the guy who's going to get the job done. He's not the kind of guy who's going to let a spark lead to a fire. He's going to stamp it out.

-o-

This world is getting colder.  
Strangers passing by  
No one offers you a shoulder.  
No one looks you in the eye.  
But I've been looking at you  
For a long, long time  
Just trying to break through,  
Trying to make you mine

Everybody wants a flame,  
They don't want to get burnt  
Well, today is our turn

-o-

Except for those times when it's just the two of them sitting in the cockpit in silence, drinking their coffee and staring out at the sky in front of them. It's times like that when he lets his mind wander, consider what it would be like to grow old and grey in a safe warm house somewhere with the woman next to him. He doesn't think that they would necessarily be happy, like one of those romantic comedy couples (he never really entertains the thought that he could be truly happy one day, it doesn't seem like it's in the cards for him), but he thinks they could be content, just the two of them. It's those times that he allows his mind to fan the flames.

-o-

People like us—we don't  
Need that much, just some-  
One that starts,  
Starts the spark in our bonfire hearts

-o-

* * *

**A/N: This is largely inspired by my day job. We have a set playlist that plays the same songs every single day. In an eight hour shift, I think I hear this song three times. I have no idea why hearing it so often made me think of Ward's character. I really couldn't tell you. This chapter came about purely because I've heard the song 12 times a week, at least, just during the course of my work days, over the last three months. I'd like to clarify, because this song is a love song, that I don't actually think that May and Ward could ever fall in love. Those two characters wouldn't be able to bring that out in one another. I do think that Ward is the kind of person though who might allow himself a moment or two to wonder what it might be like if they did though. **


	3. Chapter 3

Conversation Hearts

-o-

Clock.

-o-

Thump.

"Unf."

Fffffip.

"Urgh."

Putting the whole of her strength behind one final blow, Skye reeled back her right arm, taking care to keep her left up in a defensive position, and thrust forward in a hooking motion. The punching bag in front of her swayed from side to side in a few millimeters of motion. That was it. She couldn't even make the stupid weighed bag move. This physical training was getting her nowhere. She wanted to go back a couple of weeks to Ward insisting she learn how to dismantle a gun. Once she proved herself adept at distinguishing the safety, they had moved on to her hitting things. With her hands. She apparently wasn't very good at it.

"What is the _point_ of this? I can't even move the stupid bag!" She huffed in annoyance and began an attempt at unwrapping her hands.

"You moved it. A little bit," Ward told her evenly. He watched her yanking at the material on her hands in a way that could take her fingers off if she wasn't careful. Or if she had a stronger grip. He was starting to worry about her. She went through training in waves – one week, she wanted to do it all at top speed and the next week, she was frustrated and irritable, complaining about all of his methods. Not for the first time, he thought that it might have been better if May had been the one to work with her.

He quickly dismissed that thought. May would probably be even harder on her. May would probably want her to do her training on the outside of the flying jet or something like that. They had only been together for a few missions, but May still didn't particularly trust Skye.

He focused again on his rookie, deciding his plan of having her spend the rest of their training session lifting weights to build up her strength wasn't going to appeal to her. She was the kind of person who wanted skills, not necessarily strength. She hated feeling helpless as much as he did. She tried to yank a piece of fabric that was stuck in between several more winding bands with her teeth. Ward stifled a laugh as she pulled on it and failed to move it.

"A little help here, Tin Man?"

It wasn't helping that more often than not he found himself smiling in amusement at something Skye said or did while they were working together, distracting himself from the task at hand. There was something about her… mainly that she was like no other rookie agent he had ever met before.

"Yeah." He crossed the mat to her in two quick strides, and she held her hands out to him with a sigh and a far off look. As he unwound the wrap from one of her hands, she fidgeted from one foot to the next. She really wasn't good with waiting. "Have you been working on disarming like I asked you to?"

"Fitz won't let me practice on him anymore. He said something about the risk of serious head trauma and being unable to finish his work not being worth it." She rolled her eyes and gave a shrug, and he smiled again. "He only hit his head on the wall once. It's not like I did any real damage." She shook out the hand he had finished unwrapping, and began to unwrap the other on her own. "I really didn't. He tripped trying to get away from me." She tried to ignore the fact that Ward was now watching her like a hawk. He probably thought there was a specific technique she should be using to get her hands free of all this fabric. "It wasn't my fault there was a chair behind him." Why couldn't she stop talking? Ward had that effect on her. She clamped her mouth shut and focused on removing the rest of the fabric, then balling it between her fingers and squeezing tight, trying to stop herself from opening her mouth again. "How long does it usually take rookies to learn to disarm someone?" And she failed. So instead of looking at him after asking the question, she toyed with the strips of fabric in her hands.

Ward found himself trying not to let a grin break through. Skye was definitely not the patient kind. She would not be good at any kind of stakeout. "It really depends on the rookie. You know, a lot of ops agents start off in similar fields before they're recruited – they're soldiers, guards, some even do wet work for other organizations before we turn them."

"Wet work?"

He hesitated at the curiosity in her tone. Not typically something many SHIELD agents talked about early on. "They're assassins."

"Oh." Skye could hear the smallness of her voice, but she tried to cover it by widening her eyes and peering up at him with a smile. "How long did it take you to disarm someone?"

He faltered again, taking a small step back from her. "Well… I had a big brother, so… most of my childhood." Ward tried to make it a joke, but for all of her faults, Skye is more perceptive than most. He didn't have the best family life. And he tried really hard to forget that the way he grew up made him into a SHIELD agent. Lucky for him, she didn't push this time. With another 20 minutes set aside for their training session, Ward decided that talk about getting around someone dangerous might be the way to go. Skye could get a gun from someone, throw them off balance, but she still wasn't ready for hand to hand combat. Not by a long shot. "But, you know, sometimes, if you don't have the proper training, it's better for you to distract them, get around them, run away." He shifted his feet in her direction, trying to mimic how close she would be standing to an adversary.

Skye waved a hand in the air, side stepping him. "I'm totally good at distractions. Seriously, you have no idea how many times I snuck friends into clubs when I was a teenager."

"Batting your eyelashes and showing some cleavage to a horny bouncer is not the same as trying to distract a trained professional." He countered her movements, shifting every time she did, so that he was between her and the door.

"Is that your way of saying I'm not pretty enough to distract a professional hit man? Cause not to sound conceited or anything, but I've been told I'm pretty hot." Skye realized a second too late that he was distracting her once he had a hold on both of her wrists. She dropped the hand wraps to the mat. "Oh, is this part of today's lesson?" She batted her eyelashes at him for good measure.

Ward chuckled and tried not to think about cleavage. Or Skye batting her eyelashes. And he chose not to agree with her assessment of her 'hotness.' Out loud. Instead, Ward told her, "Pretend I'm a guard, and it's my job to keep you from leaving this room. You want to make me look the other way so you can get by."

"Just look the other way? That's it?"

"Hey, I thought we'd start small. You want to try to slow me down too, that's fine." He knew the expression on his face could only be described as cocky. He couldn't help it. Skye seemed to bring that out in him. But the way her eyes narrowed and the muscles near her shoulders tightened, he brought out her competitive streak too. He released her wrists and waited to see what she would come up with.

She tugged awkwardly on her tank top, pulling the neckline down slightly farther. "So… cleavage isn't going to work on you?"

With a smile Ward told her, "I think I can resist."

"And telling you something like, oh my gosh, Director Fury just walked through the door wouldn't work either, right?"

"Right."

Sighing, Skye crossed her arms in front of her. "And since I don't have my phone or my laptop, it's not like I can hack the security system for an alert to distract you…"

"You shouldn't be hacking the bus anyway."

"Hypothetically speaking, you're a guard in some remote facility not my SO on the bus."

"Then why would Director Fury be walking in?"

"Touché, robot." Skye rewarded him with a smile. She actually enjoyed this assignment more than the hitting. Distracting someone was something she could do. She just had to figure out what Ward's weak spot would be. She thought back on their most recent missions, tapping her chin. He had a bit of a short fuse, usually not a whole lot of patience, but he always made sure to put her and FitzSimmons first in the field. He was like a cute, but angry, guard dog. She let her eyes drift away from Ward as a plan formed in her mind. She could see Fitz and Simmons though the doorway, gears and wrenches in Fitz's hands while Simmons followed him with some sort of camera and tool box. She didn't know what they were doing, but it gave her something to focus on.

"Skye?"

"Yeah…." Still letting her eyes follow the scientists, she said, "You know, it would be so much easier to distract you if you were like Fitz. I could just make up something about Simmons being naked, and he'd shut his eyes to be a gentlemen."

"Fitz is not the kind of guy who's going to be keeping you in a room." Ward watched her warily. She shifted her weight from one foot to another like she was testing her balance or something.

"Do you think he'd look though? Or do you think he'd really keep his eyes shut?" She gestured to the door, making her movement appear halfhearted, even lackluster, like this was just a normal part of the conversation, turning slightly so that she could see Ward just out of the corner of her eye, and she had him. He turned his head just so to the side, following her gaze, knowing that the scientists were just outside, and she launched her fist at his face before sprinting around him, realizing only after she got half way to the door that her punch had actually landed.

"Skye!" Ward sounded more amused than angry.

"Ohmygodward!" Skye's cry was shrill and scared as she turned and ran back to him. His head was tipped back, one hand holding on to his nose. "I hit you!" She cringed. "I'm so sorry." She watched in disbelief as Ward smiled broadly at her. "Wait… I. Hit. You. Ha!" Skye gave a tiny hop, pumping her fists in the air. "Seriously, are you okay? I didn't break anything did I?"

Ward shook his head, a few drops of blood spotting down to his chin. "I'm fine. Bloody. Not broken." He waved his hand behind her shoulder. "It's alright, guys. We're fine." Skye made the mistake of turning her head to look over her shoulder, where Fitz and Simmons stood eying the situation with more than a little trepidation. Ward promptly grabbed her arm, pinning it behind her back. "You're not supposed to let your guard down, rookie."

"Seriously? You have a bloody nose!"

-o-

* * *

**A/N: I went a little lighter with this one than the first two. Though, I'm not sure what it says about me that my first instinct for the word "clock" is not to think about a timepiece or keeping time, but of someone punching someone else in the face. Hope you guys had fun with this one. Feel free to suggest short words that start with D, E, or F, because I haven't picked anything for those letters yet, so I haven't started on the next few chapters.**


	4. Chapter 4

Conversation Hearts

-o-

Dram.

-o-

The liquid in the glass in front of him was a deep amber. He prodded the smooth edge of the container with one finger, watching the vibrations from his forceful push move through it. He knew, deep down, that you weren't supposed to drink when you were upset. He reckoned everyone probably _knew _that. It didn't mean everyone listened to the sage advice of psychologists and addiction counselors. But he was Scottish. And drinking was as natural to him as breathing. He could probably down the whole bottle if he wanted, and not even feel it right now. But he wouldn't. Fitz didn't need the headache in the morning.

Or to be buzzed in the lab three hours from now as the case may be.

The rest of the bus was silent. Dark. Still. He suspected that May was awake somewhere. Probably snug in her seat in the cockpit like some sort of bird in her nest. He didn't get the feeling that she slept a lot. He suspected she enjoyed the solitude. Once upon a time, he would have as well. But he wasn't used to it now.

No, what he was used to was someone sharing up his space, thinking aloud, bouncing ideas off him, telling him what an idiot he was, chastising him for not understanding some sort of weird biological property that no one in their right mind would have committed to memory. And today, Fitz had come very close to losing that constant chatter, that constant presence, that near extension of himself.

Hence, the bottle of whiskey sitting on the bar next to him, and the tumbler of fluid he was playing with in front of him. He took a sip, twisted in his seat, almost certain he had heard the sound of shuffling footsteps behind him, and prepared to head back to his bunk. When he didn't see anyone in the darkness, he turned back to the bar, and proceeded to watch the glass like it was going to jump off the bar top away from him.

He could see it. It would just jump away, spilling its contents on the carpet below, maybe even shattering the glass if there was enough force behind the jump. Sad eyes. Regretful smile.

Except that a glass of whiskey doesn't have eyes or a smile. Does it?

Fitz sighed and downed the rest of the glass before he could think about it. And then he poured himself another. Just a dram more. That was all.

There was a shift behind him as he capped the bottle, and a thin ray of light spilled into the room from the hall.

"Oh. I didn't think anyone else was up."

Fitz turned on his stool again to find Skye, open laptop in her hands. He toasted her with his glass and gestured to the seat next to him. Skye wasn't unwelcome company. He had seen her face. She would understand why he couldn't sleep. Well, she would understand some of it anyway.

"Not sleeping?" She asked as she slid onto the stool next to him.

"Na' tonight." Fitz spun the glass around, watching the amber liquid swirl and reflect the light from her computer screen. She was probably busy trying to hack into something. She shouldn't even bother at this point. They had her all set to lock out, no matter what she did. He wasn't entirely sure why Coulson was so intent on keeping her skills in check. Skye's computer had saved them several times, and she admitted that what she had done for the Rising Tide was wrong. Fitz didn't think she'd make the same mistakes again.

"That busy brain of yours having trouble turning off?" Skye tried to joke, but at the sullen expression on his face, she sighed. "Where are those glasses?"

Fitz reached across to the other side of the bar, pulling one from the rack below, set it down, and uncapped the bottle for her. He only poured enough to be considered a shot, then slid the glass in her direction.

Taking a sip she grimaced. "How can you drink this stuff?" When he just shrugged, she took another sip and made another face.

He gave a small smile at her expression, a tiny quirk of his lips, and told her "guess I'm jus' used to it."

Skye coughed into the back of one hand, her eyes watery. "I kind of think this is what drinking gasoline must be like." She downs the rest of her glass quickly though, and reaches for the bottle. "No one should drink alone though."

They clink their glasses together and each take a sip before he clears his throat awkwardly and she gives another tiny smile. Any other day, and he might have been nervous to be alone with her in the dark room in the middle of the night. But after the events of the day, Skye was not someone who could make him even a little bit nervous. His brain doesn't even register that she's in the same kind of clothing she wears to work out with Ward. This morning, or yesterday morning, he wouldn't have been able to notice anything else. But as it is, his mind is occupied with thoughts of another female teammate.

"What're ye workin' on?"

"Nothing, really." Skye turned her laptop in his direction, showing him a screen with a paused game of the old school version of tetris. "Sometimes, if I can't sleep, I try to wear my brain down by making all the different pieces fit together. I don't even hack the game and cheat. I just play until the pieces start to blur together or my fingertips can't take it anymore." Skye pauses, twisting her lips to the side in thought. "I could hack for days, so my fingers don't usually wear out before my mind does. I lose a lot when it gets to the higher levels. I guess my reaction time isn't that fast. But I like that I can just keep starting over until I get it right."

"I think we'd all like if we could jus' start over 'til we got things right." Fitz ran his finger around the rim of his glass, but he didn't say anything else.

Skye hit the new game button in the top of the screen and shoved the laptop right into his hands. "Play a game." A green L-shaped block began to descend from the top of the black box in the middle of the screen, and Fitz half-heartedly hit an arrow button until it collided with the edge and dropped to the bottom, settling into place. "Maybe it'll help. A distraction." Skye shrugged, even though he wasn't watching her now, his right hand hovering over the keys, moving the next block, and the next, into place.

Fitz can't remember the last time he played a computer game like this. He'd played some of the newer video games, but there hadn't been a lot of time for things like that lately. "I dunnae think I've played this since I was a kid. In school."

"Oh, so, like, a few months ago?" That joke got a full smile from him, the corners of his eyes crinkling and everything.

"Ye know, I'm na tha' much younger than ye."

"I know. I don't know what I'd do without you and Simmons here. Everyone else treats me like I'm 12." She realized too late what she said. "I mean," she faltered.

"I know."

Fitz missed an easy move of the long straight piece into the perfect slot, and he took another sip of his drink, still keeping his eyes on the game instead of the girl next to him. The silence stretched out between them, and he wanted to tell her that Simmons had always been better at puzzles than him, much to his surprise, but he drew his lips together in a thin line, and didn't say anything else while he moved up first one level, then another. The movement of his fingers over the keys became mechanical, his thoughts wandering away from Skye and the bar.

The muscles in his face slowly relaxed while she watched him, and she moved the bottle away, beyond his grasp, figuring he didn't need anymore, even if he could handle it. She wanted to ask what it's like, to know someone so long and so completely. She saw how he was after Simmons jumped, after Ward jumped after her. It was like the whole of his heart was out there in the open air, plummeting to the water below. She didn't need to imagine that a piece of Fitz had just vanished in the time that they didn't know whether Simmons was going to be okay. Skye's never had someone else take up that kind of emotional residence in her soul before. She thought that one day, these people might, if she could let them. And the idea was amazing, if scary. She wanted to ask how he's dealing with the possibility of losing his best friend in the entire world every single day that they are on this plane, heading to missions. She wanted to ask if there was more going on between them. She wanted to know if he was in love with his best friend. The slump of his shoulders, the despair in his eyes, the otherwise blankness of his stare while Simmons and Ward were out there in the water made her think tht he was. She wanted to know what it was like, to not be able to tell where you ended and the person you cared about most began, but she didn't know how. Instead, she watched him play, and she sipped the drink he gave her.

Forty minutes later, the pieces fell too quickly for him to keep up, and when his score floated across the screen, he turned to her.

"Thanks."

"Sure."

His eyes were red. Skye didn't know if it was because he was holding back more tears that he hadn't shed earlier in the day or if it was because exhaustion was starting to set in. She didn't mention it, just closed her laptop and hugged it to herself. With a sigh he stood, drinking the last of his whiskey and taking the glass to the sink.

"I'll clean up," she offered, knowing that with his penchant for being in the lab just after Simmons so early in the morning, he was only going to get a couple of hours of sleep, if he could manage it. Fitz nodded again, the movement of his head jerky and unsure, before he headed toward the hall that would lead to his bunk.

"Skye?" He asked from the doorway.

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad yer here too."

-o-

* * *

**A/N: My intention for this wasn't for it to be a FitzSimmons piece. I love them, and most of what I've written for the show up to this point has focused on them, so I was really trying to hit the other characters before I focused anything on them, but this kind of got away from me, and I have a feeling that will happen quite a bit. They're just too great. This started with the idea of Skye and Fitz discussing the dangers of being a field agent, of the possibility of actually losing people, but then I spent most of the day listening to Christina Perri's new music, and this happened instead. Also, I very purposely don't usually write accents into dialogue, usually because if you're reading a piece of fanfiction about characters on a show, I assume you already know what the actor's sound like, I guess? I made a small attempt at Fitz's accent, but writing a Scottish accent is surprisingly difficult. Luckily, he didn't have a ton of dialogue this go around.**


	5. Chapter 5

Conversation Hearts

-o-

Explosion.

-o-

It was supposed to be something akin to routine. There were no guards to take down. The alarm system had been circumvented by Skye and Fitz's combined skills. Nothing was supposed to go wrong. Which is why, of course, something did.

There was no warning that they had tripped any kind of security protocol. No flashing lights. No buzzing alerts. No security personnel calling in. It was sudden and loud and disorienting. The walls and the ceiling of the suspected CENTIPEDE lab were there, and then suddenly, they weren't. _BOOM!_ Everything was crumbling rock and dust and acrid smells and darkness. Nothing but darkness for the two young women inside.

-o-

"Simmons? Skye?" Coulson's voice shook over the comm line after the deafening echo had come through, but all he got back was static. "Ward? Fitz? You guys got anything on the ground?"

"That's a negative sir," Ward responded, his tone even, measuring his words carefully.

Fitz, standing at his side with wide eyes on the building in front of him, didn't respond. He didn't have any words. It was like the earth had shifted. The building seemed relatively intact on the outside – except for the smoke billowing from the lower level windows, the long crack through the façade on the right corner that ran from the roof and disappeared into the ground below. And oh, right, the entire structure seemed to be tilted to one side now, as though there was nothing to hold it up.

"May, get us down there. We need to see how bad the damage is." Coulson didn't punch the surface of the holotable, though clenched fists at his side showed that he really wanted to, and May did nothing more than nod her head before she made her way to the cockpit. Her lips were pursed in a thin line, and that was the only indication of any emotion she was going to give.

-o-

It was the smell that woke her. It was like someone had struck a match right under her nostrils. She blinked, her eyes taking in little more than dust and darkness around her. As she shifted her position on the ground, her hand landed in a pile of shattered glass. Upon closer inspection, she found the floor around her littered with it. Very carefully, she pulled herself up, narrowly missing hitting her head on the filing cabinet that was crushed between two shelving units above her. It must have saved her from the worst of the blast.

A series of images assaulted her. Lab tables and stainless steel countertops. Microscopes and computers. Fire.

The blast.

In a lab.

Where she and Simmons were supposed to be retrieving whatever information they could.

Simmons was down here somewhere too.

"Simmons?" Skye's voice came out thin and raspy, not carrying very far in the cracking and popping of electrical lines coming apart or the creaking and groaning of wood and metal protesting against the sudden onslaught of heat and force. Skye cleared her throat and tried again. "Simmons?" She coughed, doubling back over.

What she wouldn't give for a bottle of water and some aspirin.

When the coughing subsided, Skye shimmed her way out from under the file cabinet. It felt like her entire body was on fire as well, but with very few flames actually surrounding the place, she was pretty sure she was safe on that front. She was just going to be very sore from the force of the blast for a very long time. It took her longer than she thought to crawl from the safety of the space under the filing cabinet. Her body protested every movement, so when she was able to see beyond it, she sat in place, panting, taking in the rubble around her.

Wires hung from what used to be ceiling. It didn't look like there was a single surface not covered in splintered wood, crumbled concrete, or glass shards. There was no longer a door to walk through. Just a caved-in hallway. One of the metal lab tables was awkwardly twisted in on itself in the far corner of the room. It looked like maybe it had taken the full brunt of the surprise explosion. Skye tried not to think of what the blast could have done to a human body.

"Coulson?" she whispered, hoping the always reassuring voice in her ear would respond. Nothing came through but static, so she pulled the tiny ear bud out and put it into one of her pockets. Those things were so uncomfortable. And it wasn't helping the ringing in her ears subside.

She had to find Simmons. And then a way out.

-o-

It wasn't the smell that woke her. She was used to burning chemicals. She did work with Leopold Fitz who had a propensity with experimenting with explosives as a teen. She could still remember the lecture they received from Agent Weaver when they had accidentally brought down the wall between their lab and the next at the Academy when they were testing a prototype for a pocket sized explosive device. It was only meant to blow a tiny hole where the doorknob would have been.

So, no, it wasn't the smell that woke Jemma. It was the buzzing. It was that awful hum that emergency lights created when backup generators were activated. She had never liked that sound. It never allowed her to sleep. And God, if she didn't want to sleep. She imagined the way she felt right now was how people with a severe hangover felt. Her head was pounding, her stomach lurching with every breath, and she had an awful taste in her mouth.

When it hurt to open her eyes to the darkness around her, Jemma was fairly certain she was suffering from a concussion. She laid still for a moment to attempt to get her bearings, shifting her muscles experimentally. She didn't think anything was broken.

She remembered coming to this facility with the others to retrieve whatever data they had on their recent experiments with the super soldier serum. The facility was abandoned. Fitz and Skye had got them in. Ward had given the all-clear. She and Skye went to the lower level lab to get the paper files she hadn't been able to hack. Fitz and Ward had been on the ground floor, trying to find any evidence of when the location had last been used.

Jemma remembered that there were no samples of anything in the refrigeration unit. The filing cabinets were mostly empty. There had only been a handful of notes that were in some sort of code. Skye had turned on the computer in the room, hoping it was on a different network than the one upstairs. And then… Heat. Noise. Lots of it. She remembered someone screaming. That might have been her. How long had she been unconscious?

Jemma brought her wrist up in front of her face with a near herculean effort, but the screen of the watch on it was cracked, the minute and hour hands frozen in place. It was of no use, so she very slowly forced herself into a sitting position. It was agony. Everything ached as though she had been put through the spin cycle of a washing machine. Her vision swam, and she had to hold her head in her hands for a moment to get her stomach to calm and the room around her to un-blur itself.

When she was able to sit up fully and pull her hands from her forehead, the fingertips on her left were slick with what she could only presume was her own blood. She very carefully prodded her hairline, searching for ripped skin, and what she found was a small piece of glass that had become lodged there. Under normal circumstances, a small mirror, some antiseptic, and a pair of tweezers would have been ideal, but since she didn't have that….

Jemma shrugged out of her sweater, now filled with the scent of smoke, and turned it inside out. She held the garment tightly in her bloodied left hand, and with her right, she reached up and swiftly pulled the piece of glass from her scalp. Her breath came in sharp gasps from the pain, and she clamped her balled up sweater to the wound. The pain helped to clear her head, as she had expected it to, and she cleared her throat, attempting to speak for the first time.

"Fitz? Ward? Can you hear me?" Receiving no response, Jemma upped the volume, her heart pounding as strongly as the pain in her head. "Skye?"

She heard a shifting in the debris somewhere ahead of her, so bracing herself on the metal table next to her, Jemma shifted to her knees, woozy from the recent explosion and bump to her head, and peered into the darkness, hoping for a friendly face.

"Oh, thank God."

-o-

"Jemma? Are you okay?" Skye wobbled through the debris, her shoes crunching on the bits of glass, and crouched in front of the other woman, but Jemma threw an arm around her, almost unbalancing the two of them in relief to answer her question.

"I'm alright," she answered in a small voice. "You?"

"I'm good." Skye pulled back and gestured back the way she came. "Some furniture blocked the worst of it." Her mouth dropped and her eyes widened. "Your head!" She reached for Jemma's sweater, but Jemma lowered it so she could see the damage.

"It's fine," Jemma assured her, ever the doctor. "The wound itself feels superficial. Head wounds tend to bleed a lot though. I actually think the more pressing matter is that I might have a slight concussion." Having said that, Jemma promptly turned from Skye and vomited into a pile of old lab equipment. "Yes," she coughed, wiping her mouth on the back of one hand, "sorry, I definitely have a concussion."

"Okay." Skye stood back up, beginning to pace. "We have to get out of here. All we have to do is find an opening, and we can get out."

"It's not going to be that simple." Jemma attempted to lean against the twisted metal table near them for support as she stood, but when it shifted, Skye had to help her to her feet. "We can't just crawl through any opening; we don't know how far it goes. And-" she began when Skye opened her mouth to speak, "we can't just start moving things; we could make the whole place collapse; we don't know how badly damaged the structural integrity of the building actually is…" Jemma trailed off, a far away look in her eyes. "It probably would have been better if Fitz had been down here with you. He'd know what to do," she said softly. She blinked slowly, and Skye shook her arm.

"Hey, you're the smartest person I know. We can figure this out."

-o-

"How're we doing?" Coulson set his jaw after asking the question, his eyes following Fitz's every move as the engineer paced with hands full of electronic equipment. The engineer was taking various readings, his attention focused on the screen in his hand, not the voice of the man in his ear, or the group of agents behind him.

"I don't know, sir. He hasn't said anything in the last ten minutes since he started scanning… things…" Ward shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what the rest of them were supposed to do.

"Okay! I think I foun' an entry point tha' won't collapse on 'em!" Fitz trotted back to them, a wide grin on his face.

-o-

"No, Skye." Simmons gestured from the stool Skye had made her sit on. "If you move that beam, you risk bringing down that section of flooring there." She moved her unsteady finger from the splintered wood Skye had one hand leaning against and traced a path to the top, where it was propping up a section of buckling ceiling tiles.

"Oh. Right. Okay." Skye took a step back, taking a breath. She had been following Jemma's instructions for the better part of 20 minutes, and she had only moved two cement blocks and a chair. Everything else she touched was too dangerous to move. This was tedious. And the smell in the lab was getting worse. Simmons was still unsteady, periodically prodding her hairline with her fingertips to make sure she wasn't bleeding again, her skin taking on an ugly green hue that Skye didn't like. They needed to get out of here.

"Skye, you should take a break," Simmons called softly. "I'm sure the others are searching for us." What she didn't say was that there might be no way for the two of them to safely dig their way out of the building without bringing the whole structure down on their heads.

"You're right. That engineer of yours probably figured out a way to get us out, and they're halfway through by now." Skye smiled at her, hopping up to sit on the twisted metal cabinet next to her. She forced the smile to stay on her face for a few more seconds before sighing. "What're our odds, really?"

"Of getting out of here?" Jemma asked her, her hands playing with the fabric of her sweater in her lap. "Better than good, not as good as great? I'm not really sure in the math, to be honest. But Fitz'll find a way…" She trailed off, her eyes looking at something far away, and Skye was sure Jemma was thinking of something having to do with her other friend. She noticed that she made no effort to deny that he was her engineer. Maybe they really were in trouble. Jemma always rolled her eyes and put off Skye's teasing about their friendship.

"It's going to be okay," Skye reassured her firmly.

"This is my fault, isn't it?" Simmons wondered faintly. "If I hadn't insisted that we could find something here-"

"Hey, none of us knew this place was rigged to blow, okay? Ward and May took turns at surveillance for the last four days, Fitz and I tracked down every bit of a paper trail we could find on this place. The only way to know for sure if CENTIPEDE left anything behind was to search the lab. Coulson signed off on everything." Skye smiled wryly. "We all played a part in this." Skye looked around them and sighed, then used the toe of one of her shoes to push some of the glass shards around on the floor. "We might have made a mistake, but we've got the best team, right? They'll get us out of here."

"Yes." Jemma sighed as well. "Of course, you're right. You know, Fitz actually had to solve a problem like this for one of the early field assessments we took."

Skye's face fell. "Didn't you tell me you guys failed all of your field assessments?"

"Well, yes. But his idea was a really good one."

The pair were silent, no sounds around them except for the walls settling into place all over again. A slight creaking occurred, and the covering on the air vent two feet away from them gave way, crashing into a pile of concrete.

"Maybe they'll just lower May down the air vents on a giant pulley, and she'll just carry us right up into the plane," Skye joked, taking off her own jacket. The temperature had begun to rise, and she was beginning to worry that her earlier assessment of there not actually being any fires around them was wrong. What if they suffocated before anyone could find them?

"Air vents…" Simmons echoed thoughtfully. She twisted in her seat, almost pitching herself off the stool as a result, to peer behind them into the darkness. "That's the door we came through, over there, right?" She pointed in the direction where most of the rubble was centered, where Skye had been attempting to play a reverse game of tetris for the better part of a half hour. Not waiting for her response, Jemma continued, "which means their refrigeration was on that side of the room," she pointed to the area where Skye had found her, hopping down off her stool, "and the tables were through the middle, the computer over here," she gestured vaguely with her hands into a dark corner that neither of them had ventured, "which means, back where you were, you said some furniture protected you from the blast, that's where the emergency showers, the eyewash, all of that would be."

"Jemma, what are you thinking?" Skye stood next to her, trying to see what she could see in the darkness.

"I'm thinking I might have a way for us to get out of here."

Before Skye could ask her what the plan was, Jemma was off, weaving her way through the twisted furniture and charred remnants of the lab. Her boots crunched glass with every step, but she kept going, even when she swayed right into a shelving unit.

"Whoah. Maybe you should slow down a second," Skye called, rushing after her, then grabbing her arm to hold her steady.

"Ugh. Being concussed is very problematic." Jemma moved her head from side to side gingerly, blinking slowly again, before she pulled Skye along to the back of the room. "Have you seen anything that looks like a wrench…. and a fire extinguisher?"

-o-

"You want us to go through the sewers?" May deadpanned. Ward and Coulson looked skeptical. "Even I can't twist my way out of a bathroom waterline."

"You dunnae have to. Tha's the beauty of it." Fitz shook his head, his fingers swiping rapidly across the tablet in his hands. "This is an old buildin', built righ' on top of an old underground filtration system. Probably why the one side o' the building was so easy ta bring down. All we have to do is follow the old filtration line through the existin' sewer system, and remove the panelin' of the floor that should lead us righ' up ta the lab's water supply."

"How are we going to _remove the paneling_?" Ward questioned. "Don't you really mean we'd have to put a hole through the floor of a building? A building that's already been compromised by a bomb?"

There was a pause while Fitz looked around at all of the disbelieving faces. "Well, yes. But I think we can do it safely with a localized charge. We should be fine."

"You want us to blow up the floor?" Ward looked incredulous, throwing his hands up in the air and glancing at Coulson for support, but the older man just nodded his head, his jaw set.

"Ward and I will stay above ground to hold off the questions from local authorities." He indicated his head in May's direction. "Get him whatever he needs."

A smile quirked at the edges of May's mouth. "Let's go get our girls, Fitz."

-o-

"I couldn't find anything that looked like a wrench." Skye scrambled over the side of an overturned shelf, hopped down, and found Jemma crouched on the floor, examining the bottom of the eyewash station with the light of the tiny flashlight Ward had insisted Skye carry in her jacket – the same jacket that Jemma was now kneeling on so that she didn't shred the fabric of her own clothing any more than she already had. "I did find a crow bar; I'm not entirely sure why that would be in a lab." Simmons shot her an absent smile over her shoulder. "And I found you a fire extinguisher."

"Good. Give me the extinguisher." Simmons held one hand out for it. "You should probably step back after."

"Wait, what?" Skye noticed, a little too late, that Simmons hadn't been just examining the bottom of the wash station, right where the drain was. No, she had been hard at work mixing a few containers of chemicals that she had found in the lab. "What are you doing?!"

Simmons set the extinguisher on the ground next to her. "We have to get underneath the wash station. I've got to get this section of flooring out of the way so we can see what's underneath." Jemma said it all matter-of-factly as she took the crowbar from Skye next and pried up the section just around the drain grate. She was able to use the crowbar to pull the grate completely away, handing it to Skye over her shoulder.

"How are we supposed to get in there?" Skye tossed the grating away, not looking to see where it landed.

"We won't. Not yet." Jemma wedged the fire extinguisher into the now empty space. "Once I pour this," she pointed to the last jar of a substance the name of which Skye was sure she wouldn't be able to pronounce, "on the other compounds, it will ignite, and the force, combined with the pressure of the fire extinguisher, will blow open the space below. We might have to use the crowbar to make the opening big enough, but you and I aren't that big; we should be able to drop down fairly easily."

"Drop down to where?" Skye was starting to worry about Jemma's sanity.

"The building is on top of an old sewer system." Jemma smiled grimly. "Easiest way to get out of here. In theory."

"In theory." Skye nodded. She thought about their options. They could wait for the team to get to them, but they had no way of knowing how long that could take, and Simmons needed to get out of here. She wasn't sure what their air situation was going to be like the longer they waited either. Not to mention, they both needed water. Her shirt was soaked through with sweat. And she was pretty sure by the way Simmons had been tapping her fingers on her thigh that the other girl had to pee. "Okay. Let's do it."

Skye stood and Jemma handed her the crowbar. As soon as she dumped the contents of the final jar on her makeshift chemical burn, she stood, grabbed Skye's hand and dragged her behind one of the overturned tables. They ducked their heads together and waited for about ten seconds before there was a sizzle, a pop, and then a low boom. It wasn't as strong as the earlier explosion that knocked them off their feet, but it was enough to cause a vibration in the pieces of furniture around them.

"I'm going in first," Skye told her when she swung the crowbar into the opening, hacking away at the splintered materials below. "We don't know how far that drop is, or what's down there.

"Oh, I'm sure it's not that far, and it's probably just a little damp. Maybe some sludge."

"Sludge?" Skye grunted as she swung the crowbar again. "Is that a technical term?"

Simmons just laughed, and brought her fingers up to check her head wound again.

A few minutes later, and Skye's jacket, one that she was definitely not going to be able to hold on to at this rate, was used to line one side of the hole in the ground. She braced her hands on it, one of them still awkwardly clutching the crowbar, then placed her legs through the opening.

"Skye, make sure you bend your knees to help brace your weight as it drops to the floor, okay?"

"Yeah."

"And Skye?"

"Yeah, Jemma?"

"Be careful. I'll be right behind you."

"Okay."

Skye had still only managed to do one pull-up in her training with Ward, but she held on with all of her strength for a long moment before straightening her arms and letting her weight drop. Her shirt snagged on the edge of a piece of concrete, but it barely ripped through the hem as she fell into the space below. There was a slight splash when her boots hit the damp ground, but there was nothing as thick as sludge. Her knees jolted from the impact of her feet hitting the ground, and she wasn't sure that Simmons was going to be able to hold up her own weight when she came through.

"Skye?" Jemma called though the darkness. She tossed the flashlight into the space, and Skye caught it with one hand.

"It's okay. You were right. It's not that far down. It does smell pretty terrible though."

Simmons very slowly made her way into the space, trying to mimic what Skye had done, but when she landed, bent knees, she teetered on her feet and would have fallen if the other girl hadn't caught her.

"Thanks."

"Yeah. So which way should we go?"

"Um, I'm not sure. Fitz spent more time with the building schematics and the maps than I did. Um, give me a second?" Jemma spun in a circle, trying to get her bearings. And then she promptly leaned over and threw up. "Oh, that's unpleasant."

"Are we going to need to get you a CAT scan or something?"

"No, no. I'm fine. I'll just need rest. Really." Simmons looked around them again, trying to gauge where the entrance to the sewer system would have been from the street. "I think it's this way." She let Skye give her the flashlight, and the two linked arms while they trudged through the unidentifiable substances around their shoes.

They walked in silence for a few meters before Skye finally said, "for what's it worth, if this was a field assessment, I think you would have totally passed. What happened in Fitz's plan?"

"Oh, he had us use chemicals to create a second explosion through the collapsed tunnel, which worked, but there were enemy guards on the other side. I took a fake bullet to the chest to block him from the enemy." Simmons shook her head. "He was so surprised when the faculty advisors announced my failure that he just stood there, ended up getting shot as well. It was stupid really. We should have just ducked out of the way, made a couple of chemical bombs to toss at them or something. We weren't thinking."

"You took a bullet for him?" Skye said it in her sing-song voice, the one she used for teasing.

"A fake bullet," Jemma corrected automatically, but she sighed and shrugged. "He's my best friend. I wouldn't let anyone kill him if I could stop it."

"Right." Skye nodded her head quickly, her mind spinning. "You jumped out of a plane for him too. And you knocked out a superior officer for him. And-"

"I get it Skye, thank you." Jemma's tone made it clear she didn't want Skye to press the issue.

"I'm just saying, if you ever wanted to talk about your feelings, now would be a good time. We're alone in a sewer. It's just me and you, perfect time for some girl talk." A light bouncing off the walls ahead of them indicated otherwise though. "Simmons, turn off the flashlight!"

She turned off the light as Skye raised the crowbar over her head, the two of them edging closer to the wall, peering ahead of them into the darkness to try to get a good look.

Simmons couldn't catch her breath. Skye's finger slipped along the handle of the crowbar, but she made sure to press Simmons behind her. As the lights came closer to them though, they heard a familiar voice.

"All ye' have ta do is pu' tha charge right below the pipeline. We should be able ta get 'em out in no time."

"Fitz?" Jemma whispered. "Have I started hallucinating? Is my concussion that serious?"

"I didn't hit my head, and I hear him too." Skye cleared her throat, and against any kind of training that Ward had attempted to instill in her, she called into the darkness, "Fitz? Is that you?"

"Skye? What're ye' doin' down 'ere?"

Fitz and May stopped in front of them, lights shining in their faces. Simmons shied away from it, groaning, hands covering her eyes.

"Simmons blew a hole in the floor with her fancy science, and we climbed down." Skye shrugged like it was no big deal. "Also, we think she has a concussion."

When Simmons leaned over and heaved, but nothing came up, she added, "I definitely have a concussion. It's rather annoying, actually."

"Let's get you back to the bus then," Fitz snapped out, pulling Simmons from Skye's side, and running his fingers over her head, looking for the wound. Simmons, rather than protesting as she had with Skye, just leaned into his side and allowed him to lead her through the sewer.

"So, what were you guys going to do?" Skye asked May as they trailed behind the scientists.

"We were going to blow a hole in the floor and have you guys come out down here." May looked disappointed that she didn't get to blow anything up.

"They really do share a brain."

-o-

* * *

**A/N: This one kind of got away from me. I intended to finish this before the last episode aired, but it just got longer and longer. I apparently decided that I really liked writing for Skye too, since she's been in the last three chapters now. I'll try not to focus on her for F. I would probably set this early on in the season if you're curious about timeline information, and I have no idea if Simmons plan to put a hole in the floor would work, I just really wanted her to use a fire extinguisher, since that seems to be her weapon of choice, to do it. Haha. I had intended to update this at least once, if not twice, a week, but I've been writing a bit out of order as well, so some chapters will update more quickly than others. I hope you guys enjoyed this. **


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I usually put these at the end, but I thought it only fair to warn everyone that recent chapters will contain spoilers for the most recent episodes of SHIELD that have aired in the US, so if you're watching them slightly behind us, there will be mentions of things happening in current episodes. I also realized that I had never written very much Coulson, so it's him and Ward this time around. G will actually be up later today. Words for H, I, and J are welcome. Thank you to everyone who has suggested words for me to use. I appreciate the challenge.**

* * *

-o-

Conversation Hearts.

-o-

Fear.

-o-

There wasn't much that Ward was truly afraid of. Not anymore. His life had been filled with enough blows that there wasn't much that could break him. But standing in front of the door to Coulson's office on the bus, just weeks after "joining" his new team, and Ward's mouth is dry, his hands a little shaky. He's not sure what to expect.

Ward has been the dutiful little soldier. He questions the way Grant Ward, solo SHIELD agent, would question authority. But he never goes too far. He exudes confidence, cockiness even, but he defers to authority and plays by the rules just like he's supposed to. He acts like he has no idea what the scientists are talking about; he's just the guy that drops the enemies after all. All he's supposed to know how to do is point and shoot. And lie. He doesn't let on just how observant he is, how much he's gleaned about all of them. He can't imagine that Coulson has him figured out. He can't.

Lifting one hand, Grant knocks three times on the door with the knuckles of two fingers. He doesn't wait for Coulson to answer, just pushes open the door. He's been expected, so he doubts he's going to be interrupting anything. And he's right.

Coulson is seated behind his desk like some sort of high school principal. He's got the paperwork spread out in front of him, even the manila folders with their carefully printed labels. Not for the first time, Grant wonders if Coulson is playing the part that's expected of him as well.

He waits for Coulson to say something to him, doesn't even offer a questioning "sir" for worry of a reprimand. Yes, he's actually worried about being reprimanded by Coulson. He's not sure how that's happened. His fingers curl and unfurl at his sides. Grant itches to cross his arms, but he knows body language experts see it as a sign of defiance to authority, a sign that they are not receptive to the conversation at hand. He doesn't want to give Coulson an edge in this conversation.

He tries to mimic the posture of someone like Jemma Simmons. She's someone who is open to anything. Despite her position in an agency that deals with everything super secret and super deadly, Simmons is one of the most open and trusting people he's ever met. It's odd. He kind of admires her for that. He relaxes his posture like she does when she's speaking with Skye or Fitz. He presses his weight back more firmly on his heels, cocks his head slightly to the side, then realizes that it appears as though he's trying to stare at a spot above Coulson's head. He straightens himself back up, just slightly, trying to look at Coulson head on. He doesn't want to appear as though he has anything to hide.

Because he doesn't. Not when he's in character.

He's Agent Grant Ward. He might have the highest marks in espionage to come out of the Operations Academy other than Romanoff, who didn't even technically have to attend the Academy, and he might not be a team player per say, but he's supposed to be on Coulson's team _because he was invited_. It's supposed to be an honor.

"Do you have a problem with the way this team is run, Agent Ward?" Coulson asks the question without looking up from his paperwork.

"No, sir?" Is that what this is about? Coulson is worried that Grant isn't going to play by his rules. Really? Hasn't he heard talk of that enough?

"Are you asking me or telling me, Agent Ward?" Coulson still doesn't look up, his pen crossing a T and dotting an I as he goes on to the next line on the paper.

Irritation flashes across Grant's face, and he's grateful that Coulson still hasn't tried to look him in the eye. He's having a flashback to his father correcting the way he spoke as a kid, and he didn't appreciate it then, just like he doesn't appreciate it now.

"I don't have a problem with the way you run your team, sir." Ward makes sure his tone is even, measured, a little cocky. He wants Coulson to see him as the guy who's used to taking the ball and running with it. He doesn't want Coulson to be too annoyed with him though. "I just worry that so much of the team has so little experience in the field."

"You and May both," Coulson mutters under his breath, tucking the pages in front of him into a folder.

Ward has to stifle a smile at that, and since he knows Coulson and May have a history, he adopts her stance instead. Feet apart, head straight, hands clasped behind his back. He's a good little soldier all over again when Coulson finally looks at him.

"Is that why you've volunteered to be Skye's SO? You worried about her?" There's something in Coulson's eyes that is more than just his team leader persona, more than his school principal shtick.

"Agent May suggested it. She thought Skye would benefit from the training new cadets get." Ward shrugs as if it is no big deal, as if he has been training rookies for years. He knows that Coulson knows the truth. He had been in enough trouble on Garrett's team that he had never been trusted with a rookie of his own.

At least, SHIELD thought he had been in trouble. The truth was Garrett submitted enough disciplinary write ups to look like he was the agent who could handle the cadets who were roughest around the edges. Garrett trained anyone assigned to his team to make sure they could handle the "work". And if they couldn't? Well, his team was routinely assigned to some of the most dangerous missions. Things had a way of working themselves out for his old SO. Ward had learned that a long time ago.

Ward's hands are still pressed tightly together behind his back, and he swallows as Coulson regards him thoughtfully. He can feel himself starting to sweat. It doesn't matter how good of a liar he really is, no one has ever looked at him quite like Coulson before. It's in his eyes. How much this team means to him. How much he cares about what they're doing. How important it is that Skye is a part of all that. How he wants to help them all be better. How important it is to him that this team is a family.

Ward doesn't really get it. Families have never really been his thing. He just wants to blend in and do his job. All he has to do is play his part for the next few months and get Garrett the information he needs.

"Try not to be so hard on her, Ward. Skye isn't like you. She didn't have the training you did."

The words land unspoken that if Ward pushes too far, he might break the new girl. And even though Ward has long been able to point and shoot without a thought, breaking a girl who just wants to belong to something isn't his idea of successful completion of his mission. This is one time when he and Coulson might actually be on the same page. Ward isn't trying to push her too far, he's just trying to keep her at arm's length. She's the one person on this plane Garrett didn't get him background information on. She's the one person on this plane that he hasn't prepared himself for. And he's worried that she'll be able to see through him long before Coulson does. She gets that same look in her eyes. She and Coulson are the kinds of people who make you want to bare your soul to them.

Ward isn't sure how much of a soul he has left.

"Right. Sorry, sir. I was just trying to prepare her."

"Maybe start at step one. Not step five."

Ward waits, muscles burning because he's eager to shift his wait from one foot to another, but he doesn't want to betray his discomfort any more than he already has. Coulson sighs and rubs the center of his forehead, just between his eyes. Ward tries not to think about the fact that this guys was dead a year ago and brought back to life. He tries not to think that a resurrected SHIELD agent is sitting in front of him, placing his trust in him, worrying about his working relationship with a member of this fledgling team. He tries not to think about the fact that Fury himself is the one who ordered this guy back. Fury is the one who gave him this team. Fury trusts this guy implicitly.

Couslon is, by all accounts, a good agent, but Ward's found that he's an even better man.

And Ward is here to do nothing but betray him.

He waits for the other shoe to drop, for Coulson to mention that he knows he's up to something. But the other man just waves him off, dismissing him from the room, saying nothing.

Agent Grant Ward tells himself that he has absolutely nothing to be afraid of as he walks away.

-o-


	7. Chapter 7

Conversation Hearts

-o-

Guilt.

-o-

"Dammit!" It's the fifth time a glass fragment has ripped right through his gloves and into the skin of one of his fingertips. He's bloody sick of it. He's got scratches all over now. He looks like he's been taking care of a bloody feral cat instead of repairing the damaged plane. "I'll be back," he spits out at the few men who've been helping them with all of the welding and soldering the bits of metal back into place. No one pays him any mind, goggles and ear plugs blocking out the sound of their equipment and the sight of him walking away.

He makes his way to the lab. Most of the equipment is surprisingly intact, but the room is still in a light shambles, though Fitz and Simmons have both taken turns at spots of minor repairs. He doesn't think he'll ever forget the sadness on Simmons' face when her gaze raked across the bullet holes in the common area, or the fear when it landed on the splatter from a stopped pair of ICER bullets in the lab doors. She made him explain over and over again about who was shooting at whom. She hadn't taken her eyes off May for a solid five minutes after that. They were supposed to be assessing damages, but Simmons couldn't stop staring at her.

_Help May patch the holes._

Easier said than done. Bullets hadn't just torn through the sides of the ship, shattering glass and damaging supplies. Hydra had ripped through SHIELD like it was its own personal machine gun, splintering teams, causing decades of research and security to be lost, leading friends to turn against one another. It was quite possibly the single most damaging coup in SHIELD's history.

Fitz rummages through the drawers, trying to find a new pair of gloves since he's ripped yet another pair wide open, rendering them useless, but gives up and slams the cabinet shut. They need to conserve their supplies. They don't know when they'll be able to get more. They have no budget from SHIELD now. Much of The Hub is shot to hell too. They really are going to have to take an inventory at some point. He's just going to use his bare hands from now on. If he has to have Simmons pick bits of glass out of his hands later with a pair of tweezers, he'll deal with it then.

Turning, he prepares to exit the lab, and almost runs smack into the ninja-like Melinda May. He has a fleeting thought that he needs to start paying better attention to his surroundings. You never know when a Hydra agent might sneak up on you. Not now. You might not even know the other person in the room is a Hydra agent. The noise of drills and pneumatic tools at work in the distance bring a reminder of gun fire.

_Bang. Bang. Bang._

Three successive shots with shaking hands, and he can see the guy drop to the floor, even though his vision was blurry from tears at the time.

His stomach turns in the span of a moment, and he rushes to the sink, spilling its contents down the drain. It's nothing but a bit of water and bile. He hasn't been able to keep anything down all day. He knows he needs to actually eat, but his stomach just keeps turning over and over and there is so much to do that food is, for the first time in a long time, not something he cares about.

"Sorry," May says softly, "I was just coming to change my bandage."

She gestures to the wound on her arm. No stitches means she's pulled the slowly healing scab yet again, fresh blood soaking through the old gauze. She's probably gone through as much gauze as he has gloves. Manual labor can't be good for recent gunshot wounds. He doesn't look her in the eye when he rinses his mouth and washes his hands. At least they've got some of the plumbing up and working now. The filtration system is still intact. Not much else is.

"It wasn't because of you," he mumbles in the direction of the floor, drying his hands on his shirt when he can't find a towel, before pulling a roll of gauze from another cabinet.

"I know." May sighs, taking the gauze from his outstretched hand. "I didn't mean to alarm you though." She keeps her expression blank and carefully controlled as she takes a seat on a table and begins to unwrap her old bandage.

Fitz fidgets, one finger trailing along the edge of the cabinet in front of him. There are things he wants to ask her – what was Director Fury like one-on-one, what was Coulson like before he was leading the team, did she suspect Garrett before the rest of them, why did she try to shoot him when she could have just talked to him, but most of all, would killing strangers get _easier_? He doesn't say anything though. He just runs his finger along the edge before using his other hand to tap out a rhythm, realizing too late that his other hand is the one with all the shallow cuts from the glass bits. He winces, squeezing his fingers into a fist to distract himself from the pain. There's a part of him that doesn't want to get close to May, that still doesn't trust her, that understands why Coulson is so angry with her, though he still isn't sure about the extent of what she did, but as he watches her struggle with the gauze, he takes a step closer to her and takes it from her fingers, unwinding fabric from her upper arm slowly and methodically. May's hand hovers above his for a moment, unsure, then she drops it into her lap.

He doesn't like the sight of blood, never has, but after the days he's had recently, a little blood in a tiny round hole on May's arm isn't going to be enough to make him faint. He only grimaces at the small bullet wound once before recovering his composure.

She doesn't say anything for a stretch, and he sneaks a glance at her face every so often. She's stoic as ever, but now, Fitz knows there's something else there. It's behind her eyes. He can't tell if it's fear or something else. He thinks that after the events of the last couple of days, maybe there's a little of that behind all of their eyes now. He doesn't take quite as much care as Simmons would if she was here with May. He yanks the last vestiges of the bandage from her arm, tossing it into a growing pile of detritus in the corner. All of the dangerous materials that have been shot up and pulled out, he doesn't think he has to follow "hazardous waste" protocol they usually follow for blood at this point; it would be a losing battle.

Fitz applies a fresh coat of some sort of antibiotic ointment that Simmons always puts on everyone's wounds, no matter what it is. He's sure that's what he's supposed to do. Neither of them say anything for a long moment, but he can feel May's eyes on him now. It's like she's studying him.

"Thank you." Her tone isn't quite as quiet and controlled as it was before. There's an edge to her voice, a catch in her breath.

Fitz shrugs in response, winding the fresh gauze around her arm, probably a little tighter than necessary.

"I wasn't talking about this," she tells him, matter-of-factly, but not unkindly.

"Oh." His word isn't something he says in surprise or fear or sadness. It's more like resignation at this point. A reflexive exhalation. He should have known when she walked in here that they would be talking about this, no matter how much he was trying to avoid it. He sighs. It's a small one, but it's out before he can stop it.

"What you did, I know how hard that must have been for you, but I wouldn't - we wouldn't all still be here if you hadn't. I would have lost that fight." She places a hand on his arm, and it's probably supposed to be comforting, but her skin is cold, and it doesn't make him feel any better. He twitches away from her, not comfortable with the contact. Not from her. Not right now. He finishes up with the gauze as quickly as he can, his ears ringing with shouts and explosions that have long since stopped. Swallowing hard, he tries to push the echoes of the fight from his mind, but it's difficult. He doesn't really know how he's still functioning, only that he is.

May's eyes are still following him as he puts the rest of the gauze away and cleans up the few supplies he's used to patch her up. He knows what she's picturing as she watches him – the shaking hands, the tears. He's out of his element here. He knows that he's always been more comfortable in a lab. He never even wanted to leave the lab. He can't help but wonder though if Hydra would have been able to get to him, make him talk, much sooner if he was still back in the safety of the Sci-Ops buildings. If Jemma hadn't convinced him to take this job, he very possibly would have been tortured for information at this very moment. So would she. Or –

He closes his eyes and takes a breath, trying to push the images that have been assaulting his mind for the better part of his day somewhere to the back. Images that Garrett planted in his mind of Jemma being brainwashed by some sort of machine. Images of scientists he knew at the Academy with various limbs impaired. Loved ones held hostage to get them to cooperate. He can worry about them later, when he's trying to sleep.

"It's… difficult. And you probably feel guilty about it. But – "

"I don't," Fitz cuts her off, facing away from her now so she won't see that he's struggling to hold back tears. "I don't feel guilty." With a shuddering breath, he turns to face her again. "I just don't like it. I don't like that it's something we have to do." He sees the man in a SHIELD uniform falling over and over again, like some sort of instant replay. He remembers Garrett's directive to shoot him in the knee caps, the implication that his best friend was being tortured for her knowledge. His eyes meet hers. "And I didn't do it for you." It's the most direct he's ever been with May, and if this was any other day, he probably would have been afraid she'd hit him.

"I know." May doesn't smile at him, but there's something in the set of her face that makes him think this is supposed to be encouraging. It's like she's proud of him, what he's done, his admission. "And I know you'll do it again when you have to. It changes you. And I'm sorry for that."

When she turns and leaves him alone in the lab, Fitz doesn't entirely know what to think. He didn't lie to her. But he doesn't believe that she really understands. He doesn't feel guilty about killing a man working for one of the most evil of evil empires. He doesn't feel guilty for helping to stop those people from killing his teammates. And he doesn't feel guilty for helping to keep them from getting to Simmons and Triplett. He feels guilty for being too scared to do it sooner. He feels guilty for entertaining the wisp of a thought of almost giving in to Garrett if it meant that he could save Simmons from a similar fate. He feels guilty for the split second of hoping Jemma was already dead so that Hydra couldn't get to her. He feels guilty that he can't fix the haunted expression on Skye's face, or Coulson's, or Jemma's. He feels guilty that he couldn't do more, couldn't just fix everything for all of them. There were so many other things for him to feel guilty about that shooting someone doesn't even make the list.

Fitz watches as May and Jemma walk by the doors, Jemma keeping plenty of distance between them, while one of the SHIELD agents (was he even supposed to be thinking of them that way now) helping them with repairs directs their attention to a problem. It is Jemma, not May, who chances a look over her shoulder, her eyes finding his across the room. She doesn't offer him a smile like she usually would, but her posture changes, physically asking him to join them. He nods his head, steels his nerves, and goes back to work.

_Time to start patching the holes._

-o-

* * *

**A/N: I actually had this written before the previous chapter and did a few tweaks here and there. Don't expect other chapters to go up this quickly though. Two in one day is most definitely a rarity. Weirdly, I think this is my favorite that I've done so far. Maybe it's because I adore Fitz and I don't think he's had enough scenes with May.**


	8. Chapter 8

Conversation Hearts.

-o-

Hands.

-o-

_You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?...'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That's what everyone wants. Not 24/7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche...or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can't hide._

_-David Levithan, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist_

-o-

She has always been able to exhibit more patience than the other people around her. Maybe it's because her interests have always been in biology and chemistry, and things rarely happened instantaneously in those fields. Research and experiments could last for years in her profession. Jemma has always been perfectly content to spend hours watching cells divide and replicate, change shape, looking for patterns in them. She's been just fine with spending days or weeks on the same project, even spending months going over old notes searching for that one missing piece of the puzzle.

But when your best friend has been missing for two weeks because he is being tortured (possibly) into submission in some secret Hydra facility somewhere, patience is no longer a virtue. Instead, patience is a fucking insult people hurl at you when they think you're unmanageable.

Jemma lost count of how many times the others told her she needed to let Skye work, how many times Ward told her she needed to calm down and clear her head or she would be no use to them, she lost count of May's sympathetic looks.

It was Day 16 of the search for Leopold Fitz when one of May's sources, she won't say who, finally gives them the information they need. There is a surveillance feed on the facility where Fitz is being held. Skye can hack in.

When Skye starts to work her magic, it's Ward who suggests that Simmons shouldn't be in the room.

"I beg your pardon," she hisses at him. Other than the sound of Skye's fingers clacking on the keyboard in front of her, the rest of the room goes unearthly silent while Simmons stares him down. Unlike so many others, she isn't afraid of him. What was he going to do? Throw her over his shoulder and forcibly remove her? "Don't you think you're going to need a medical opinion on his state?" She asks, her voice high and shrill, her eyes hard. She's an instant away from slapping the concerned look from his face when May's hand lands on her shoulder.

"She stays," May tells the room flatly. "She knows him best. She can help." Her eyes flash at Coulson when he opens his mouth, likely to protest that decision, but he sighs when his gaze meets hers, closing his eyes briefly before turning his attention on Skye.

Simmons stands very still, grateful for May's hand on her shoulder. It's a steadying presence she didn't know she needed, and she takes a tiny step closer to the other woman. It's only a few minutes, and if they were all still SHIELD agents and not technically terrorists at this point, Simmons would find it laughable that Hydra's electronic security is so easy for Skye to hack from the comfort of her laptop. (Her laptop that is backed up by what is left of the Hub's systems.)

"Okay," Skye says, her voice halting at whatever she is looking at, "I'm in. You want me to put it up?" Her gaze falls on each of them in turn, and stops on May and Simmons, unsure. She had hooked her laptop up the Hub's video feed when she started, but she doesn't want to step on anyone's toes, and she doesn't want anyone to fall apart. Simmons can see it all over her face. She is all downturned lips and bright eyes, cheeks pale, breaths coming quick. Whatever she was looking at on her screen was bad. Very bad.

It's May who answers for all of them, without looking anywhere but at Skye.

"Put it up."

Ward doesn't visibly react to the image as it comes up on the screen at the end of the room. He just stands very still on his end of the conference table. Coulson finches, but he recovers quickly. May tightens her grip on Jemma's shoulder, fingers creating a pressure point for her to focus on. It's Triplett who actually pulls out a chair and sinks into it. He's seen a lot of people subjected to torture in his short time in the field, but he's never seen someone look quite as defiant as Fitz does on the screen. It probably doesn't help that he personally trained under the man who is responsible for Fitz being taken.

Jemma doesn't buckle. She doesn't scream. In fact, her throat all but closes and she has to stop herself from throwing up. She reaches up to her shoulder and grasps May's hand, even though she knows that May isn't one for comfort. It helps her.

"M- most of his. Lacerations. They are superficial," she begins. Even from the grainy video feed she can see that the cuts are shallow, like paper cuts, meant to inflict pain, but not to cause real damage. They're meant to motivate him. The discoloration around his one eye though, that's worrying. She lets go of May's hand, allowing it to slip from her shoulder, and takes a step closer to the screen, narrowing her field of vision, trying to get a better look. She points to it as she explains, "this is worrying though. I can't tell how old this bruising is, but the swelling – it could cause permanent damage to his vision if the bone has been damaged. I – I don't know how extensive." There's a tilt to the bridge of his nose that wasn't there before either. "His nose is broken." There's dried blood, at least she is pretty sure it's blood, above his lips. "He'll need to have that prop-properly set soon. Before it causes. Real damage to his – his breathing." The camera moves as he fidgets in his seat, and she sees someone else come into frame. It's Garrett.

"Son of a bitch," Tripplett mutters angrily. It was probably meant to be under his breath, but with them all so quiet and focused, it sounds like a near shout in the room.

"At least they've treated the gunshot wound to his leg." Simmons falters, left feeling grateful that they simply shot him in the thigh and didn't blow out both his kneecaps as Garret had originally instructed. "I'm not… Not sure how well - he might not be able to run when we get to him."

With no audio, the group can't hear what Garrett says to him, but whatever it is, Fitz is having none of it. He shakes his head from side to side, his mouth set in a thin hard line. It's the most vehemently he can deny something while he is held in place by shackles.

"I'll try to get that lip reading program up and running," Skye says softly. "But if we don't have a full view of Garrett's face, it won't be able to pick up what he's saying."

They watch in horror as Garrett grabs one of Fitz's hands. His hands are strapped to the arms of the chair he's in, but his fingers are free. The Hydra agent that they all thought they could trust just 16 days ago says something else to Fitz, and Fitz resolutely stares straight ahead, mouthing the word no. It's not a difficult statement to read. Simmons covers her mouth with both hands as Garrett pulls one finger of Fitz's hand back until it snaps. She doesn't need audio to know what the bone sounds like as it is broken. Fitz's fingers can't bend that far back. He isn't double jointed. She feels bile rise in her throat, but she swallows it down. She doesn't need audio to hear the echo of Fitz's screams in her mind either. She knows his voice as well as her own. Even with no sound coming through the room's speaker system, his cries are deafening for her.

"We have to get him out of there. Now." She can't tear her eyes from the screen until she hears a ripping sound behind her.

"Agent Simmons," Coulson says in the most conversational tone he can, "take Agent Triplett for a walk. Now."

"But," she starts to protest that she needs to see this even as her vision has begun to blur from tears, that she can help, but she realizes that the ripping sound was Triplett pulling one of the arms of the chair clean off. "Oh."

Jemma hesitates, shuffling her feet as she walks over to him. Wouldn't it be better if someone like Ward took him for a walk? Someone who could restrain him if needed? Triplett's eyes aren't hard and angry when they meet hers though, and she realizes that maybe Coulson thinks he's not going to go completely off on mild mannered Dr. Simmons who is concerned for the welfare of her teammate.

She turns to Skye before she reaches Triplett, "You'll tell me if anything changes, if you know anything?" She doesn't ask anyone else because she knows Skye gets it, her concern. Skye knows that now that Simmons has seen him on camera, she isn't going to rest until they have him back. She isn't going to play politics or wait for the most secure plan. She's going to go after him herself if she has to. And she knows Skye will too.

"Yeah." Skye nods at her, not smiling, but the color has returned to her cheeks a bit. She's motivated, Jemma has no doubt.

Agent Triplett rises from his seat and makes it to the door before her. He holds it open, head bowed, and she realizes it's the first time he hasn't looked her in the eye when they are within less than five feet of one another. He's usually very direct.

Neither of them say anything as they walk the halls of The Hub. Simmons awkwardly nods her head and tries to smile at the few technically-no-longer-SHIELD-agents they pass, but she knows the smile can't make it to her eyes. It's too much effort to turn those muscles up when she can still hear Fitz's screams in her mind. She decides, as they reach a deserted area of broken bits of glass and walls full of bullet holes, that it is best to give them something to focus on.

"Did they tell you anything about the facility where Fitz is being held before I got there?" she asks him point blank.

"Just that it's a converted warehouse, like a lot of the CENTIPEDE buildings we've come across." His voice isn't as warm or as smooth as it usually is, and he wipes his palms on the front of his pants as though trying to rid himself of some sort of imaginary dirt, still facing away from her.

"Well, hopefully there's more security footage Skye can access so we can – we can – get him out of there." Jemma nods her head, attempting for confidence, but she wrings her hands in front of her betraying her anxiety, and she stops walking, leaning against one of the walls ridden with bullet holes. There's a coppery stain on the floor to her right, and she wonders if it's Hydra or SHIELD blood, if there's any difference now. She fights to hold back a sob, and her arms ache with the absence of the person who usually comforts her in these situations.

"I'm sorry," Trip whispers, his voice low and soothing as he leans against the same wall, just on the other side of the stain, one finger toying with the edges of a whole in the wall. "I should have seen it. I should have known that Garrett – "

"How? Garrett had everyone fooled. Even Coulson, who's known him the longest; they trained together when they were both coming up in the Ops Academy." Simmons shook her head, allowing her body to slide down the wall and settle herself on the floor, eyes still drawn to the copper on the floor. "You cannot blame yourself. This isn't your fault."

Trip follows her example and slides his way down the wall. While Jemma pulls her knees in, hugging them to herself, He stretches his legs out in front of him, allowing his muscles to pull tight. The burning sensation coursing through his skin gives him the illusion that he's experiencing some semblance of the pain Fitz must be feeling right now. He's broken bones, dislocated joints, torn muscles, even taken a knife, a few bullets, but the kind of pain he's feeling now – the guilt at his not seeing Garrett's mask and the guilt at the pain Simmons was clearly in – he didn't even feel this badly when he lost members of his former team.

And thinking about losing members of his own team reminds him that Garrett is the man responsible for all of it. And the guilt and the pain is replaced by a white hot anger that he tries to harness. He plans on using it when he helps them save Fitz.

"How long did you work with Garrett?" Simmons finally asks him when she sees that he's clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles are beginning to whiten. Coulson thought she could calm Triplett down, so she was going to try, even if every fiber of her being was screaming at her to do something to help Fitz. Logically, she knew that calming Trip enough to get him to effectively do his job would help Fitz.

"A few years." Trip glances up at her quickly and takes in her disheveled hair and red rimmed eyes. "You and Fitz have known each other since the Academy though, right?"

"Yes." Jemma's mouth starts to quirk in a smile as she tells him, "After our first couple of assignments together, the professors, the other cadets, they all just started calling us FitzSimmons instead of Fitz and Simmons; we worked so well together." She lapses into silence, thinking about all the different projects she never would have completed without him. "I don't know if I know how to do this," she gestures haphazardly around them, "without him."

"You're not gonna have to," Triplett tells her. "We're gonna get him out of there. Promise." He smiles his million watt smile at her, and she sees shades of the man who helped her treat Skye with a bullet wound in her stomach, the same man who gave her a knife to arm herself against possible Hydra agents at his own expense. He's in there. He's just angrier now. Triplett reaches out one of his hands, and it's steady now, even though they've only been seated out here for a few moments, and places it on her shoulder, his arm traversing the blood stain on the floor like a bridge over a red river.

Jemma doesn't lean into his touch, she doesn't allow herself to relax, but she does close her eyes to stop the tears that are threatening to fall.

"Realistically, what do you think our chances are of getting him back?" She's come to the point in field work where she usually ignores the math and relies on blind faith in people like Coulson and May and Fitz, but she wants to know the truth. She wants to prepare herself for the worst.

"100 percent. We are getting him back. I'll make sure of it." Trip squeezes her shoulder just a little bit tighter, but she doesn't open her eyes, and he thinks he hears her suppress a sob. "Those people back in that room? Half of them are legends, Agent Simmons. Coulson was brought back after being killed by a god. May is the Cavalry. I don't know Skye all that well, but what you and Fitz did to keep her alive, I'm pretty sure she's all in for him too. And Ward? He's got to be as pissed off as I am that Garrett is on the other side. That's motivation. And sometimes that's better than a team of a thousand agents. We will get him back. I'll walk in there and get him out myself, alright?" She still doesn't open her eyes, but he watches as she slowly nods her head and takes a few shallow breaths, her chest shuddering with the effort. She's staving off a panic attack, so he asks something he thinks will calm her down. "What will you do? When we get Fitz back and he's all patched up, what's the first thing you're going to do while he's recovering? You gonna kiss him senseless?" He tries to tease her, thinking that will do the trick, and it does.

Jemma lets out a noise somewhere between a hiccup and a bark of laughter. She sniffles before she says, "Fitz and I are friends. Very best friends. He doesn't like to be touched very much. I – I don't know…" She trails off, blinking away her tears as she opens her eyes, her cheeks slightly pink.

"Yeah, you two are just friends like Agent May is just a pilot," he quips, sliding his hand from her shoulder to around her neck to attempt to bolster a little more confidence in her. She had done her part in calming him down, even if all she really had to do was keep him away from the video screen that had Garrett's face on it; he isn't going to let her fall apart.

Jemma sighs and goes silent, staring at the spot on the floor between them. She doesn't offer up any more denials, knowing that they are all useless. What she does or doesn't feel for Fitz, what he does or doesn't feel for her, isn't really the issue anyway. The issue is that he's important to her, and she doesn't think she'll be able to deal with it if she can't get him back. The red in the carpet stares back at her. She is reminded that she doesn't know whose blood it is, and if she voiced that aloud, Trip would probably say it didn't matter. She doesn't want Fitz to wind up a casualty that doesn't matter. She wants to know that he's going to be okay, that he's solid and real, and not just a spot that no one is going to remember when this is all said and done. She wants him to know that he matters. To her.

It's like when she was a little girl and she would go to one of those farmer's markets with her mother. The sea of people looking at some of the more popular booths would overwhelm her and she would feel like she was nothing, no one, like she could be swallowed up in the crowd and forgotten. A pressure would settle on her chest and she would forget to breathe with the fear. But then, her mother would reach out, firmly grasp her hand, and lead her through to the other side, and Jemma could breathe again.

"I-" she begins, faltering when she looks up to meet Agent Triplett's eyes.

He taps his fingers gently on the back of her neck, encouraging. "Yeah?"

"I would hold his hand. I would tell him that he's going to be alright. I would let him know I was here?" Jemma's voice breaks again, and she clears her throat. "Most of all, I would just hold his hand until he didn't want me to anymore."

Triplett nods his head. "Then we're gonna make that happen."

It takes another three days, but they do. It's Triplett who goes in and gets Fitz out while May and Coulson hold off Hydra members. Somewhere along the way, they lose Ward to the other side, and it doesn't make any sense to any of them, but at least they make it back to the Hub and a waiting Jemma and Skye with an unconscious Fitz in tow. It's Jemma who sets the broken bones in his fingers and bandages his cuts while he's unconscious. And while they all wait for him to wake up, the rest of the team can continue with their work, but Jemma sits at his bedside and holds his hand while Triplett guards his hospital door.

-o-

* * *

**A/N: I started this before the season finale, and I almost scrapped it completely and went with another idea, but I decided to finish it before I changed my mind altogether. I think I'll be adding Triplett in as a member of Coulson's team with his seeming addition to the show, so he'll be part of my rotation in conversations as well. Also, I have s many FitzSimmons thoughts as a result of the last few episodes of season one that I think they might overwhelm several of the next chapters. Hope you enjoyed this!**


	9. Chapter 9

Conversation Hearts.

-o-

Incidentals.

-o-

"Hey, AC?"

A sigh preceded the "Yes, Skye?" He probably would never get used to that nickname, no matter how many times she used it.

She spoke around the piece of chocolate she had just popped into her mouth. "Not that I don't love getting my dinner out of vending machines, and not that the clothes that I'm wearing aren't some of my favorites, but-"

"We're all going to need real food and a change of clothes?" he finished for her, his eyes still trained on the few stars he could see above them.

It was starting to worry her, just a little bit. He'd been sitting in that chair, staring at the sky for more than an hour while she worked on the coding for a program she hadn't quite been able to perfect on her laptop. She knew that Fitz and Simmons were still sitting on the edge of the pool; she couldn't tell what they were talking about, but they had been sitting with their feet in the water discussing something in hushed tones for quite a while. Every so often an accented word would carry her way in the night air. Since she hadn't seen him since his second bag of chips, she figured Triplett had probably joined them. Either that, or despite his mentions of being on vacation, he was doing some sort of safety walk around the perimeter of the building to make sure they were all safe. He was like a friendly little guard dog, that one. She thought he was going to fit in with their renegade team pretty nicely.

"Yeah, exactly. I know you said we need to take some time and regroup, but… I think we might need to make a midnight run for some supplies. It's LA, something's bound to be open." Skye shrugged, saving her work, and closing her laptop with a click. She might not have had her toothbrush or a clean pair of underwear, but she had every piece of equipment she'd need for her computer in her bag. It hadn't occurred to her that she would be on the run after leaving Providence with Ward, and now she was regretting that.

Even the others had only managed to grab a few ICERs and random supplies while they were getting out and away from the Army guys that had boxed them in. May was the only one who had actually packed her own bag, and Skye was willing to bet that it was full of nothing but standard issue black SHIELD wear and a gun or two. Maybe a protein bar, but that was probably gone by now.

"Okay." Coulson gave another sigh, and Skye realized he didn't have a working car.

"I'm sorry about Lola."

"I don't want to talk about it right now."

-o-

May pulled her seatbelt into place and glanced in her rearview mirror.

"When you said we were making a supply run, I didn't think we were all going," she told Coulson flatly, but he knew her well enough to see the blink-and-you-miss-it twitch that indicated she was trying not to laugh at the antics going on in the back seat of the car her mother had loaned her.

Fitz was squeezed between Triplett and Simmons, trying and failing, to appear completely at ease as he explained to Trip exactly why he was wrong about some law of physics having to do with sound. Trip had stretched one arm around the younger man's shoulders in an effort to not be squashed flat against the door, and he was sipping from a bottle of water in his other hand, a wide grin on his face, like he was amped for a cross country road trip, more amused than annoyed by Fitz's speech. Simmons, practically on Fitz's lap to give Sky enough room, was chattering animatedly with Skye, recounting their dealing with Colonel Talbot and his men at Providence, and every time she would gesture with her hands, her right would fly back, nearly hitting Fitz in the face, but he was so caught up in his rant at Triplett that he didn't even notice. Skye was the only one not attempting to scrunch herself into a smaller space, eying Simmons with rapt attention, one of her knees draped over the other girl's legs, her arm around her back, wrist colliding with Triplett's every so often over the headrests. They didn't look like highly trained operatives for a clandestine organization that protected the world; they looked like a bunch of college kids gearing up for a Friday night kegger.

May had a feeling she was about to chaperone a highly entertaining, if not somewhat annoying, late night trip for "the incidentals," as Coulson had explained to her.

"It was Skye's idea. She's the only one who doesn't have a single change of clothing. Trip overheard us and said he was tired of using all his cash on the vending machine, so he wanted to grab some food. Simmons said she wanted to make sure we were getting the proper allotment of vitamins. Fitz wasn't about to stay there by himself." Coulson shrugged in a what-are-you-gonna-do fashion, opening his eyes wide in an attempt to apologize without actually saying anything.

May rolled her eyes. "You realize we're probably going to be in there half the night."

"Good thing we're taking a vacation then. You can sleep until six instead of five."

-o-

May pulled into a parking spot in the mostly deserted lot, but before she let anyone out of the car, she activated the child safety locks and turned in her seat to face the kids in the back. Without consulting Coulson, she eyed each of them in turn. "We are not going to be in here for more than one hour. Do you understand?"

They nodded mutely at her.

"Good. We're going to divide and conquer. Simmons and I will tackle groceries and toiletries. Skye, you and Coulson are in charge of clothing and related items." May gave Triplett and Fitz a wary glance before rolling her eyes to the ceiling and adding, "the boys are in charge of any defense and technological supplies we might need."

Coulson nodded his approval. "We'll meet at the front of the store in 45?" Another muted nod came from the back seat before they all began babbling over one another.

"Sir, I don't think you and Skye know my sizes," Fitz began, cheeks coloring.

"I'd really like to have input on the kinds of food I put in my body," Trip told them.

"Shouldn't I be the one worried about the tech since my laptop's all we have?" Skye wondered aloud.

"Does anyone have any allergies?" Simmons asked politely.

"I feel like we should have seen that coming," Coulson remarked to May while the four of them continued to voice their concerns over one another. May smirked at him, 'I told you so' written all over her face. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the owner's manual, ripping out the last four pages and handing it to the young agents in the back seat. "Anybody got a pen? A marker?" At the confused expressions he was getting, he added, "Eyeliner?" Skye produced an eyeliner pencil from her back pocket after some awkward wriggling. Simmons had a pen from the hotel in her hair that she unwound. Triplett patted down his jacket pockets until he found a red marker that he must have picked up on one of his last missions. Fitz shook his head, and Simmons rolled her eyes, handing him her pen. "Make a list of what you want. You've got five minutes, then we're getting out of the car."

-o-

"You've got everyone's sizes, correct?" Coulson asked as Skye threw a package of men's black athletic socks into the shopping cart between them.

"Yep." She eyed the next section of shelving with something akin to glee. "Do you think I should go with a regular plaid print for Fitz, or do you think he'd want something with monkeys on it?" She didn't stop to consider that maybe she shouldn't be having quite so much fun picking out underwear for the team. If this whole SHIELD thing didn't work out in the long run, maybe she'd be a personal shopper.

Coulson gave a quiet chuckle and tossed a package of undershirts in Triplett's size into the cart as well, then added another pack for himself.

"Monkeys it is," Skye answered her own question, grabbing another package off the shelf and adding it to the growing pile. She surveyed the contents of the cart with a satisfied nod. "On to women's wear?"

"Lead the way, Agent Skye."

-o-

Simmons eyed the list of ingredients in the body wash she was holding in her hands. She shook her head in disgust and put it back on the shelf. At May's raised eyebrow, she explained, "it's little more than perfume; there's no cleaning going on there. We're better off sticking with the sample sized bottles the motel has provided us with. Or dish detergent."

May reached around her, picked up the cleanser off the shelf and set it in the body of the cart. "We can't live off sample bottles forever, Simmons."

"Yes, but that's-" She stopped at the look on May's face. "Right. Okay." Jemma moved down the aisle, pulling a package of razors from the shelf without looking at it, then dropping it in the cart. They wandered down the rest of the aisles in relative silence, picking up two tubes of toothpaste, a pack of toothbrushes, various bottles of shampoo, and an industrial sized package of protein bars.

Simmons made a face at the pack of protein bars, but May told her, "you never know when we might be locked down somewhere without a way to get to real food. Everybody keeps a couple of these on them, they don't starve to death while hiding out in a cave somewhere."

"You think we could wind up hiding out in a cave somewhere?" Simmons asked incredulously as a girl who couldn't be more than sixteen skirted their presence. She lowered her voice and leaned closer to May, "that seems a little extreme."

"It's my job to consider the extremes," May explained, leading her to the next aisle.

Simmons and May exchanged a look as they came face to face with a wall of condoms.

"I don't think we'll be needing any of these," Simmons informed her primly, speed walking down the aisle. She flinched and spun on her heel when something landed in the cart, but when she glanced inside, she realized May had tossed a box of tampons in.

"If my math's right, you and Skye will be needing those in a couple of days," May deadpanned.

"Oh." The flush on her skin deepened.

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about, Simmons. You're a grown woman." May gave her a half smile as they made their way to the groceries.

"It's not that I'm embarrassed," Simmons told her quietly. "It hadn't even occurred to me. I don't even know what day it is."

"Tuesday."

"Right." Simmons rolled her eyes before she could stop herself. Of course May knew exactly what day it was. Her internal clock was probably never off by even a millisecond.

"It's alright. We've had a lot to deal with these last few days," May reminded her, one hand on the other girl's arm as they turned down another aisle.

-o-

"Do you have any idea why they would sell hunting gear at a store in the middle of Los Angeles?" Fitz asked Triplett. They had planted themselves in front of a glass case full of hunting rifles and bullets. He suspected the glass itself could be broken easily, kind of a flaw in their storage, really. "What are they hunting?"

"Not a clue." The salesperson stationed in this area of the store kept sending them suspicious looks. "We'd have to wait on a permit to get anything out of here," Tripp mused, turning his head to Fitz. "You got any ideas on other defensive measures?"

"Oh, you're asking my opinion?" Fitz feigned surprise. "You don't have an answer?"

Trip gave him a lazy smile, hands in his pockets. "You're the genius."

"Yes." Fitz smiled back at him. "Yes, I am."

Maybe this Triplett character wasn't so bad after all.

They wound up with a box of toy guns Fitz insisted he could modify to use the night-night rounds Triplett had managed to load one of their bags with on the way out of Providence and several knives just small enough that they didn't need permits to carry them. Triplett eyed a crossbow wistfully, but Fitz quickly steered him out of the sporting goods and into the electronics area to pick up additional flashdrives and a new external hard drive for Skye. Spotting a display of kids' walkie-talkies, he tossed three boxes of those in as well. He would be able to modify those to get them all on the same frequency over longer distances.

"What next?" Triplett wondered as he idly thumbed through a selection of DVDs.

"Arts and crafts," Fitz answered brusquely, taking charge of their shopping cart and wheeling them in another direction.

"Seriously?" Triplett trailed behind him.

"For an at home soldering kit, obviously." Fitz shook his head at the other man's tone. "Did you expect me to modify the toys with magic?"

"To be honest, you used parts from a jet engine to rig up spotlights of pure energy. I wouldn't be surprised if you could make a bomb out of silly string and a lamp."

"Well, that would just be ridiculous," Fitz muttered under his breath, but Triplett was rewarded with a big smile for his comment.

-o-

"Put it back," Coulson instructed solemnly.

"What? Why? We're at a motel _with a pool. _You can't expect us to not use the pool. It'll help us stay in shape." Sky dangled the garment in front of his face enthusiastically, and Coulson responded by looking at his watch. "Come on, AC!"

"This one's better." He picked up a modest one piece that looked like it was probably made for a teen girl training for the Olympics.

"This one's more fun," Skye shot back, the two piece on the hanger getting a swift shake for good measure. "Besides, how much would you pay to see Fitz's face if Simmons came out to the pool wearing this?"

"I think I'd pay more to see her face when you tried to get her to wear it," Coulson said with a smile. Simmons kept herself firmly layered and buttoned up. He was fairly certain that she would turn a very deep shade of red if Skye attempted to force a bright pink string bikini on her, and then likely stutter about research into Hydra being more important than a quick swim. Fitz wouldn't get to see her in it, and it would be a waste.

"Point taken," Skye sighed in defeat and put it back on the rack. She flicked through the jeans and tee shirts, pajamas and sweaters, undergarments and even gloves, that they had accumulated. "Sorry they don't sell suits, AC."

"I'll be alright." He loosened the tie he was wearing just a bit. "Ready to go meet the others up front?"

"Yep. I think we've got everything." Skye shuffled the torn pieces of paper in her hands. "I mean, Simmons and Fitz both wanted safety goggles, and Trip needs a new bulletproof vest, but I don't think we can pick those up here."

"Maria's promised to loan me a few things," Coulson reminded Skye. "I'm sure she'll send us a few vests. I don't know what those two think they're going to need safety goggles for."

"Can she get Talbot to send us the rest of our clothes?" she grumbled.

"I don't think Talbot's talking to her right now."

-o-

Simmons gently set a bunch of bananas into the cart, followed by a bag of apples and several bags of trail mix. May came back to her with a loaf of bread, a box of crackers, a box of plastic cutlery, and a jar of peanut butter. Simmons nodded and gestured for them to be added to the pile.

"We can't get anything that needs to be cooked or refrigerated, so I guess we'll just be ordering a lot of takeout?" Simmons mused as the other woman grabbed a case of bottled water from a display and slid it onto the bottom rack of their shopping cart.

"Fruit and nuts," May murmured. "I'm sure Triplett and Fitz will be thrilled with this."

"Fitz has a serious junk food habit, and I am not encouraging it," Simmons said hotly. "Did you know he actually keeps candy hidden in his bunk? What am I saying? Of course you do. You know everything that goes on."

May bit down on her tongue to keep from laughing. "This situation we're in, Simmons, a little junk food isn't going to hurt us." Having said that, she led her teammate to an aisle full of nothing but snacks and dropped bags of popcorn, M&Ms, and cheese curls into the cart.

"Do you have any idea how many chemicals are in these?" Simmons questioned, pulling the cheese curls from the cart. "I wouldn't even use these in the lab, much less encourage someone to ingest them." She placed them back on the shelf and grabbed a bag of regular old potato chips instead. "Better. Slightly." Simmons glanced down at her wrist, intent on checking the time before she remembered that she wasn't wearing a watch.

"Yeah, it's time for us to meet the others," May agreed. She waited a beat while they were walking before telling her, "You don't have to worry about him so much, you know. He's a good agent."

"I know he is," Simmons responded softly, "but none of us are really agents anymore, are we?" She didn't look at May as she added, "I can't help it. Worrying."

"I know."

-o-

Fitz and Triplett were the last ones to make it to the front of the store, where the others were currently going through their shopping carts and debating the usefulness of the items inside.

"You think it's a waste of money to get us all pajamas?" Skye was questioning May. "What d'you want us all to sleep in? I am not sleeping in my underwear if I'm sharing a room with-" She looked around at the assembled group, her eyes straying to the guys in particular. "Well, I don't know who I'm sharing a room with, so the pajamas stay."

"Why exactly do we need all of this?" Coulson's head was bent into Simmons and May's cart, and he emerged with an armful of makeup.

"Ooh, I like that color," Skye cut in, trying to snatch a container of blush from Coulson's hand, but he deftly moved it out of reach.

"Sir," Simmons began, "those are a necessity. May and I agreed."

"If we have to go undercover, it helps to get in character," May added.

"That's probably the only thing they're all going to agree on, isn't it?" Trip joked as Fitz chuckled. They were met with annoyed glares from all three women, so Fitz quickly busied himself with poking around in the cart with the food.

"Popcorn," he mumbled. "Excellent." He could feel Simmons glaring at him, but he pretended he didn't as he looked up and smiled at the group.

Coulson shook his head and made his way over to Triplett to flick through the items there. He nodded his head in approval at the walkie-talkies, but the confusion on his face was evident at the box of toy guns.

"Fitz said he can modify them to take the ICER rounds so we have a little bit more firepower," Triplett explained. "I don't really know how, but if anybody can do it, he can."

"Okay, looks good."

"It looks good? What do we need duct tape for?" Skye exclaimed, fishing out the extra large pack with three rolls of the silver sticky stuff.

"Don't knock the duct tape," Triplett said with a serious shake of his head.

"It's actually quite a useful tool in many situations," Simmons spoke at the same time.

"There are a lot of field applications," Coulson joined it.

Skye looked to May for support on this one, but the other woman surprised her when she agreed. "You never know when you might have to duct tape someone to the floor and torture them for information."

A woman pushing her baby in a stroller shot them an alarmed look and scurried away.

"Wow. That got dark really fast," Skye said. "We should probably get out of here before she reports us to security."

"Yep."

"Agreed."

"Let's go."

"That lane's open," Fitz gestured to the right.

-o-

Their cashier raised her eyebrows when she was told all three carts were going to be paid for by the man in the suit in front of her. He was accompanied by the strangest group of people she had ever seen. Well, at least the strangest group she'd seen on this shift.

"We work together. In town this week for a meeting," Coulson explained as Triplett and Fitz engaged in some sort of juvenile horseplay behind him with the action figures of Iron Man and The Hulk that were on display.

She nodded her head and smiled, but just kept scanning the merchandise without a word.

"Airline lost our luggage," May added, shooting a stern look at the boys who sheepishly returned the toys to their display.

Skye thumbed through a gossip magazine while Simmons read over her shoulder.

"Oh," Fitz snapped his fingers. "I forgot to ask, do you sell fireworks?"

"Not this time of year. Sorry." The girl shrugged, raising her eyebrows again as she scanned the assortment of knives and the toy guns.

"There's a themed presentation," May offered stoically while she bagged the items.

"What're you thinking, Fitz? Taking them apart to create handheld explosives?" Simmons asked, her eyes not leaving the pages of the magazine, forgetting that they were in line at a big box store where anyone could hear their conversation.

"Well-"

"They're just kidding," Coulson said loudly and sternly, effectively cutting off all talking. "Kids these days, you know?"

-o-

Triplett and Fitz pushed the carts out of the store ahead of them, Simmons and Skye following at a more leisurely pace, sharing the weight of a cart between the two of them.

"We're not taking them all out at one time like this ever again, are we?" Coulson asked.

"I will duct tape them to the beds in the motel rooms first," May deadpanned.

-o-

* * *

**A/N: I don't think anyone can say they didn't think about the fact that the team couldn't have much of anything with them when they wound up laying low at that motel. I wrote bits and pieces of the team arguing about what they would need a couple weeks back, and it turned into this mess of a midnight supply run that was really fun to write. I needed some fun. Next chapter? Almost complete and not quite as light hearted. Hope you guys enjoyed this!**


	10. Chapter 10

Conversation Hearts.

-o-

Jog.

-o-

It's not something she was ever very keen on – exercising her body. It was always her mind that was more important to her. But now, in this place called The Playground, Jemma finds that exercising her mind just leaves her thoughts circling in on themselves, settling somewhere between fear and guilt that often leaves her sobbing, so she takes to getting up in the middle of the night and spending hours in the gym to force herself into a state of exhaustion.

-o-

It was 3:47 AM when she rolled over for the umpteenth time that night. Days in this new place, trying to sleep in an unfamiliar room, walking in unfamiliar halls, she almost preferred that awful motel in Los Angeles. At least they had a pool. And cable. And bigger bedrooms. And each other. Sighing, Jemma threw the blanket from herself, picked up her elastic from the table and put her hair into a hasty ponytail. It only takes her moments to dress herself in what used to be standard issue SHIELD workout gear for all the other agents – black tank top, black pants, both emblazoned with the logo of the agency they were supposed to be helping Coulson rebuild from the ground up. She idly wondered if he would change the symbol now that he was put in charge as she pulled socks and running shoes on to her feet. It was a little strange. The amount of SHIELD logoed clothing in storage here in various sizes dwarfed her own belongings.

She made no noise as she walked down the darkened hallway. Even though everything was so unfamiliar and uncomfortable here, she had memorized the route from her room to the small gym meant to keep housed agents in shape. She'd also memorized the route to the kitchen and the bathroom, but she'd barely been eating and she hated going into the bathroom to shower unless she knew someone else was near.

The sound of the water rushing from the faucet made her shake. She knew that was normal, given what she'd been through, but she was beginning to worry about how long it would last since it was taking her longer and longer to force herself to jump into the shower stall and stick her head under the spray of the water. The first time she did it, she hyperventilated. She managed to calm herself down before anyone found her panicking, but it was getting harder to keep herself calm when she was in there by herself.

As she turned into the workout room, lined with blue mats and filled with a weight bench, a punching bag, a treadmill, and various other pieces of equipment, the soles of her shoes squeaked on the tiled floor. Jemma paused, her ear quirked, listening for any signs of movement. Explaining why she was utilizing gym equipment in the middle of the night was not what she wanted. She just wanted to be so exhausted that her brain would finally allow her to sleep without thinking of how she ended up here. When she heard nothing, she padded into the room and made her way to the equipment without turning on any lights.

Logically, Jemma knew that you were supposed to do a series of stretches before working out any of the muscles in your body to prevent injury, but just then, she could care less about straining a muscle in her legs or twisting an ankle. She stepped up onto the treadmill and pushed a series of buttons that would give her an easy pace with little incline. She wanted to run as long as she could until her muscles burned with exhaustion and she could collapse on the bed in her new room. Or at the very least, she wanted to run until she heard the others begin to wake, then she would stop and join the morning meeting.

One foot in front of the other. She breathed in and out easily, arms pumping at her sides. Her lungs had recovered surprisingly quickly after forcing herself to swim through 90 feet of water on one breath and pulling Fitz's weight to the surface with her. The pounding of her feet on the belt of the treadmill reminded her of the pounding of helicopter blades.

She pushed the button to speed herself up just a bit.

It was still an easy pace. She wasn't even out of breath. She jogged for several minutes, closing her eyes for a moment, but the blackness on the back of her lids made her think of the black of the almost complete darkness of the sea. She snapped her eyes open again, locking her gaze on the stark white walls.

The white of the walls here was almost the exact same shade of paint issued for the painting of the walls for things like medical pods that could be stored on hellicarriers or submarines. Her breath caught somewhere in the vicinity of her lungs, but Jemma forced herself to exhale slowly through her nose and take a deep breath in through her mouth. Once. Twice. Three times. And she was back.

She pushed a button increasing the incline of her run just slightly, just enough to put in a bit more effort.

More.

_You're more than that._

Fitz's words continued to echo in her brain. His voice has been haunting her since she got here. She'd been having a hard time thinking of anything other than how he felt (feels, her brain corrects her automatically) about her, what he did for her, and where he presently was – asleep in a hospital bed being monitored by doctors who were not her, but had all been vouched for by the former director of the former SHIELD. It wasn't fair that they wouldn't let her see his charts, that they wouldn't take her input, that they wouldn't let her help him. He's only in the shape he's in because of her, and she would give anything, _anything in the entire world, _to make everything okay again.

She pushed another button increasing her speed, her legs moving twice as fast as they were before. Her body could take it. She had every confidence in her ability to just keep running, even if she wasn't going anywhere.

Fitz wasn't going anywhere either, her traitorous brain reminded her. Fitz was currently trapped inside his own head, likely his own version of a private hell. She was living in hers too. They always had been on the same wavelength.

Up went the incline.

She missed him. She more than missed him.

_More than._

Up went the speed.

She wasn't sure that she was going to be a good enough agent without him. She wasn't used to having to work without him by her side anymore.

Up went the incline.

She began to lose track of her breathing, unable to keep herself calm and steady as she ran at this pace. Her breathing began to come in sharp gasps, her lungs burning, but she pushed herself harder. Her muscles stretched, but they weren't rubbery and spent yet, and she wasn't about to stop until that happened.

Up went the speed again.

The pace was punishing, but it wasn't stopping the images flicking through her head with each of the balls of her feet hitting the treadmill belt. When she couldn't take it anymore, she slammed her hand on the button to bring the machine to a stop, then grabbed the handrails on the sides of the control panel, bending at the waist, sobs racking her body.

"Simmons?"

She hadn't even heard the door open behind her. She was usually more observant than that. The scientist in her appeared to be on pause. Just like the rest of her life.

Jemma choked down her tears, but her stomach heaved unexpectedly against her, so she dropped to her knees on the treadmill, breath rushing out of her. Clearing her throat, Jemma forced her voice to sound some semblance of normal as she said, "yes?"

Her voice was too high though, almost shrill, and she winced before turning her head to the side at the feminine voice behind her. It wasn't low enough to be May. It could only be Skye.

"Hey…" Skye walked into her line of sight, dropping to the ground on the other side of the treadmill, her eyes huge and concerned as she peered at Jemma under the railing. "What are you doing?"

Jemma was glad that Skye didn't go for the old _how are you _this time around. As horrible as she was finding her current state of mind, she was also so tired of people checking on her, worrying about her.

"I'm-" her voice gave out and she was forced to take a breath, clear her throat, to say "just, you know, jogging."

"Jogging?" Skye echoed, eyes still wide and concerned, but she gave a gentle smile. "That didn't look like jogging to me. When I jog, it's nice and easy, kind of lazy, just to burn some extra calories, you know? That looked like, to borrow a phrase from one of the nuns I used to know, the devil himself was chasing you."

"Yes, well…. No devil here, just me." Simmons quieted before she was forced to lie, her eyes beginning to fill with tears without her consent. "It's just me," she murmured to herself, dropping her eyes down to stare at the floor, her feet moving out from under her to find purchase on the floor, but she didn't rise, just hugged her knees. Skye didn't say anything seated opposite her on the floor. They could be a couple of young women after gym class gossiping on the mats if it wasn't for Simmons trembling hands and red rimmed eyes. Sighing, Simmons admitted to Skye, "I can't sleep." A tear made its way out and down her cheek before she could stop it. "Every time I close my eyes, I see it."

"The water?"

"Yes." Simmons flinched when Skye placed on hand over hers, not out of fear, but out of surprise. She raised her gaze to meet Skye's in the darkness, willing her to understand that the flinch was nothing personal. "I thought – I thought we were going to die down there." Her voice became quieter as she spoke, afraid to give voice to her thoughts, not wanting to make them real.

"You want to tell me what happened?" Something must have shown in her face because Skye rushed to add, "You don't have to if you don't want to!" But her grip on Simmons hand tightened, wanting to encourage Simmons to get some of her feelings out in the open. The scientist might have thought she had been holding back her discomfort well, but the entire team was just as worried for her as they were for Fitz, maybe more so because Jemma was here with them, wide awake, and supposed to be participating in the rebuild, but there was a vacancy in her that wasn't there before, a cloudiness to her gaze.

"He saved me." Jemma rocked back just a bit, more tears falling. "He saved me and-" She stopped herself from saying what she had intended. Some things that happened at the bottom of the ocean floor were not things she was ready for everyone to know just yet. Instead, she shook her head. "I keep seeing his face right before he got the pod open. I keep seeing the way he smiled at me – like he accepted everything. Like it was right that I would live and he could - Like he thought I could just leave him there. I couldn't." She shook her head again. "I couldn't."

"I know. Shh…" Skye moved up onto the treadmill next to her, looping their arms together and letting Jemma lean on her. "I know you couldn't leave him there. Jemma, you did everything you could to get him out of there. He's alive because of you," she tried to soothe her, but Jemma was full on sobbing now.

"You d-don't understand. I couldn't. He practically told me to. He said. He made me take the oxygen. I just. Skye." Jemma's breath came in quick bursts like she was running again. She tried to stop the tears again. She was tired of crying. So tired of it. After days of finding quiet places to break down, she felt like she shouldn't have any fluids left to form tears. "He's my very best friend." She gulped. "In the world." She brought one hand up to wipe at her face. "It's not that I don't love all of you. I do. But it's Fitz."

"Yeah," Skye agreed in a whisper, "it's Fitz." She waited a beat for Simmons breathing to even out, sensing that she was still holding something back about her best friend in the world. She wasn't going to try to pry it out of her, but she knew that Simmons needed some sort of release. She needed to direct all of this guilt and worry and sorrow somewhere, and she wasn't getting to direct it into helping Fitz. Skye was pretty sure it was only a matter of time though before Coulson allowed her to take over the engineer's treatment. They weren't going to be able to keep her from him for long. "You didn't tell us how you ended up in the water. Did Garrett-"

"Ward," Simmons cut her off quickly. He was a sore subject with the whole team at this point. "We got away from some of the other Hydras on the plane, and we locked ourselves in because we were afraid of what would happen if they got to us. Fitz tried to talk to him, but he was so – cold. He wouldn't listen to reason. He just – he entered the release protocol and dropped us into the middle of the bloody ocean. All because Garrett was more important than us." Her grief gave way to anger and she gave a little stomp of her foot like a child throwing a tantrum. It was the most she could muster.

"Ward did that?" Skye knew her former SO had been busy doing everything Garrett told him to do, but with everything that he had lied about, everything he had done to them, there was still a part of her that believed he wouldn't put FitzSimmons in harm's way. They were FitzSimmons! Shuttling them out of a plane into the middle of the ocean to die was like abandoning a sick puppy or something. It was unthinkable.

Simmons nodded. "Have you seen him since they took him into custody?" She asked, trying to shift the conversation, and her mindset, away from Fitz, but still envisioning the expression of horror on her friend's face when Ward hit the button on the control panel in the wall.

"No. I don't think I really want to. May's been in to interrogate him a couple of times." Skye shrugged. "I'd rather not think about it."

"I know I shouldn't condone the torture he's probably going through in those interrogations," Simmons said, "but I really hope she makes him hurt. So much." Her breath caught in her throat and she fought for composure. "I know that he was doing what Garrett told him to do, he was just following orders, but I don't know… I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive him for this."

"Good." Skye's tone was so flat and final that it surprised her.

"What?" Jemma turned to her incredulously.

"It's good that you're mad at him. What happened to you and Fitz? That's on him, not on you. Hold on to that. Anger is useful." Skye nodded her head at her pointedly.

"What in the bloody hell are you talking about?" Simmons was so confused by the turn in the conversation that she momentarily forgot her grief again.

"I've been training with May. Hate-fu is awesome." Skye's expression was so earnest and excited that Jemma felt a laugh start to bubble up in her throat, but she swallowed it down and waited for an explanation. "Come on, I'll show you." Skye hopped up and gestured for her to do the same.

Jemma shakily climbed to her feet to follow Skye across the room to the punching bag. On it was something she hadn't noticed before. Someone, presumable May or Skye, had taped a printed picture of Garrett to the middle of the bag, right at the height were Skye's fist would normally connect to it.

"Wha-"

"Yeah, I was going to put a picture of Ward on here, but I thought that would just piss May off even more than she already is, and Ward really was just Garrett's lapdog… didn't seem fair. Everything that's wrong with our team right now, it can all be traced back to Garrett. He's where our anger belongs." Skye jabbed one finger at the middle of the paper to emphasize her point.

"But… Garrett's gone," Simmons struggled to understand.

"He's a metaphor, Simmons. He gives us a place to focus all of that anger, all of that pain." Skye gestured to the picture again, but Simmons kept her forehead scrunched up as though trying to work out a difficult equation.

"It's probably better that you show her," came May's voice from the door.

Simmons jumped almost theatrically, but Skye didn't react to the other woman's sudden presence other than an eye roll. She hurriedly wrapped her hands with tape provided by the bag May placed on the ground near them, explaining to Simmons about posture and stance and a lot of other things that the scientist didn't process. Jemma was too busy looking back and forth between the two women, not sure how she had wound up in the middle of one of their training sessions before the sun was even up when all she had wanted to do was outrun her own thoughts.

"You should stand over here," May told her softly when Skye took up a fighting stance in front of the punching bag. She gently pulled Jemma to the side where she had a nice view of Skye and the Garrett photo without being in the line of fire. "Skye's made a lot of progress, but sometimes her control isn't the best."

"Not like you," Jemma whispered apprehensively.

"Not like me," May agreed with something of a sigh.

May gave Skye a set of instructions as she worked on her form and her thrust, Skye's fists landing sometimes on the paper, sometimes just outside of the square. Once the basics were over though, May began presenting Skye with various scenarios. Garrett lying to them all, betraying them to Hydra, ordering Ward to steal their secrets, threatening them. Skye appeared to regroup, drawing from some internal place that Jemma didn't have access to, before her punches began to land again, her stance more self-assured, the blows coming faster, until the paper came clean off the bag in a series of shredded segments.

"We're gonna need another one," Skye panted as May pulled one from a shelf at the back of the room.

"That was good, but you still need to work on protecting your core." May tore off a piece of duct tape from a roll with her teeth and slapped the new picture into place. It was slightly below the square of the old one. "One blow to the right spot, and you'll be so winded, your instinct will be to double over. You don't want to put your head down like that."

"Got it."

May turned to Simmons while Skye grabbed a bottle of water from the bag. "Would you like to try?"

She shook her head uncertainly. "I never did well with defense training at the Academy."

"This isn't the Academy. And this isn't defensive."

May produced another roll of tape and methodically wrapped Simmons hands for her, showing her which areas to protect, how to get the fabric tight enough to do its job, but still be able to flex her fingers. Skye hopped up and down just off to the side of the mat and smiled encouragingly while May positioned Simmons in front of the bag.

"You want to keep your weight balanced," Skye called to her. "And keep your body moving. Like in a real fight. Breathe through the punches too. It helps you not lose your breath so fast."

May fought off a smile at Skye's enthusiasm to help Jemma. "Bend your knees a little bit." She put her hands lightly on Jemma's waist, showing her how to position her feet and her shoulders, then bent her fingers into fists that wouldn't leave her with broken bones if they hit against someone else's skull. "Aim right for the center of the picture, like this." May moved into a stance right next to her, drawing one fist back and then letting it fly directly in the middle of Garrett's face, leaving a deep wrinkle in the paper.

"Okay," Jemma left her voice small, feeling self-conscious. She knew they were trying to help. God knew how much of the conversation between them May had heard. They knew she was upset. She didn't see how repeatedly hitting a picture of a dead man was supposed to help her work through her feelings about Fitz though. She took a deep breath in through her nose, then let it out in a quick burst as she lightly let her fist hit the side of the picture. She dropped her hands to her sides, shrugging.

"Put your weight behind it. Harder," May instructed, still close by her side.

Jemma did as she was told, bringing her arms back up in the position May had placed her, her eyes boring into Garrett's in intense concentration. She tried to conjure up the same anger that Skye had talked about and shove aside her embarrassment at punching a picture in front of The Cavalry. She drew her right arm back into an imitation of May's and put as much of her strength behind it as she could. It hurt just a little bit when her fist connected with the edge of the paper, but it was a good kind of hurt.

Skye took a step closer to them seeing the determination on Jemma's face, and after exchanging a look with May, she took a breath and said, "Garrett tortured people into working for him, just like the worst of Hydra. He would take the people they loved and threaten to do horrible things to them if they didn't cooperate."

Jemma hit the paper again, nodding her head in agreement with Skye. She glanced back and forth at the women flanking her. "What else?" she asked breathlessly. To her surprise, this could actually work.

"At the Hub," May began, not sure if this was a good tactic to take or not, but thinking it might be what Simmons needed to keep going, "he told us you were probably dead. He was going to kill us and take Fitz with him to work for Hydra."

Jemma hit the paper again, narrowly missing Garrett's face. "I heard that," she breathed out before drawing back for another punch. "Agent Hand had a radio." She clenched her jaw in frustration.

"Try to alternate hits from each hand so you don't burn yourself out," May instructed, one hand on the middle of her back to help hold the younger woman together.

"He gave Ward his orders," Skye reminded Jemma, "got him to steal all of your research about everything we've done."

Jemma hit the paper again and again. She tried to carefully control her breathing as Skye had warned her, but it was becoming more difficult the longer this went on.

"He betrayed an organization that was supposed to protect people," May said softly.

"He took a little boy from his dad."

"He had Victoria Hand killed."

"He had all of Trip's partners killed."

Jemma's fists slowly began to land closer and closer to the center of the picture with each blow, the paper crinkling more and more with each thrust.

"He's the reason Ward dropped us into the ocean," she bit out, landing a punch dead center, the paper tearing in two. She pulled her body back in surprise, tension uncoiling from her muscles when she saw the image of Garrett distorted and broken. It was amazingly cathartic. Heart pounding in her chest, she turned, looking back and forth between them again as though her head was on some sort of swivel, eyes bright and for once, clear. "That's…"

"Better than jogging?" Skye finished for her, a broad smile on her face.

"Much better than jogging. What do we do next?"

For the next hour, May led Skye and Jemma in a series of drills that involved weights and fight training. Every so often, Jemma would glance back at the ripped picture on the punching bag, take a deep breath, and dive back in.

-o-

The noise of the punches being thrown, a few yells, and a loud chuckle that hadn't been heard in days, were what drew Triplett and Coulson to the doors of the gym, though neither of them went in.

"You think this is a good idea, sir?" Triplett's eyes followed Jemma's movements as May and Skye demonstrated how to use an opponent's weight to throw them off balance.

"They're working it out," Coulson answered, his own eyes landing on the torn picture of Garrett on the punching bag at the back of the room. "May's given them something to focus on. For now, that's enough." Jemma's laugh as Skye managed to throw May echoed through the room. "More than enough."

-o-

* * *

**A/N: I know there's been a lot of Simmons-by-Fitz's-bedside stories after the events of the finale, but I really wanted to give her a way to deal with her grief other than sitting by Fitz's side crying. After May and Skye's discussion about hate-fu, this seemed like a pretty plausible way for Simmons to deal if she couldn't help Fitz right away.**


End file.
